SOHO LASCO C2 Latest Image

RADIATION STORM: Accelerated by Friday's X-flare, energetic protons from the sun are still swarming around Earth on Jan. 29th. The radiation storm ranks S2 on NOAA scales, which means it is not a severe storm. Nevertheless, it can still affect spacecraft and satellites at the nuisance level. Click on the image for an animated demonstration: That was a coronagraph image from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). The many speckles and streaks are energetic protons striking SOHO's onboard digital camera. Stronger radiation storms (S4 to S5) can fill images like these with "snow," rendering them useless for normal operations. The current storm will probably subside later today and restore SOHO's clear view of the sun.

January 30, 2012 – WORLD – Space weather – variable conditions in the space surrounding Earth – has important consequences for our lives inside Earth’s atmosphere. Solar activity occurring miles outside Earth’s atmosphere, for example, can trigger magnetic storms on Earth. These storms are visually stunning, but they can set our modern infrastructure spinning. On Jan. 19, scientists saw a solar flare in an active region of the Sun, along with a concentrated blast of solar-wind plasma and magnetic field lines known as a coronal mass ejection that burst from the Sun’s surface and appeared to be headed for Earth. When these solar winds met Earth’s magnetic field, the interaction created one of the largest magnetic storms on Earth recorded in the past few years. The storm peaked on Jan. 24, just as another storm began. “These new storms, and the storm we witnessed on Sept 26, 2011, indicate the up-tick in activity coming with the Earth’s ascent into the next solar maximum,” said USGS geophysicist Jeffrey Love.” This solar maximum is the period of greatest activity in the solar cycle of the Sun, and it is predicted to occur sometime in 2013, which will increase the amount of magnetic storms on Earth. Magnetic storms, said Love, are a space weather phenomenon responsible for the breathtaking lights of the aurora borealis, but also sometimes for the disruption of technology and infrastructure our modern society depends on.

Disruptions on Earth: Large magnetic storms, for example, can interrupt radio communication, interfere with global-positioning systems, disrupt oil and gas well drilling, damage satellites and affect their operations, and even cause electrical blackouts by inducing voltage surges in electric power grids. Storms can also affects airline activity — as a result of last weekend’s storm, both Air Canada and Delta Air Lines rerouted flights over the Arctic bound for Asia as a precautionary measure. Although the storm began on the 19th of January, it did not peak until January 24th. While this particular storm had minor consequences on Earth, other large storms can be crippling, Love said. He noted that the largest storm of the 20th century occurred in March, 1989, accompanied by auroras that could be seen as far south as Texas, and sent electric currents into Earth’s crust that made their way into the high-voltage Canadian Hydro-Quebec power grid. This caused the transformer to fail and left more than 6 million people without power for 9 hours. The same storm also damaged and disrupted the operation of satellites, GPS systems, and radio communication systems used by the United States military. While large, the 1989 storm pales in comparison to one that occurred in September 1859 and is the largest storm in recorded history. Scientists estimate that the economic impact to the United States from a storm of the same size in today’s society could exceed $1 trillion as a result of the technological systems it could disrupt. The USGS, a partner in the multi-agency National Space Weather Program, collects data that can help us understand how magnetic storms may impact the United States. Constant monitoring of Earth’s magnetic field allows us to better assess the impact of these phenomena on Earth’s surface. -USGS

THE CME THAT MISSED: January 31, 2012 -As expected, a CME from last Friday's X-flare missed Earth on Jan. 30th. NOAA forecasters have downgraded the chances of strong polar geomagnetic storms during the next 24 hours to 1%.

FARSIDE ERUPTION: Sunspot AR1402, the source of last week's X-flare and many beautiful auroras, is on the farside of the sun now. Although we can't see it, the active region is still erupting. During the late hours of Jan. 31st, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory observed this coronal mass ejection flying over the sun's western limb: The cloud is heading in the direction of NASA's STEREO-Ahead spacecraft, which witnessed the explosion from directly above the sunspot. An initial inspection of the data suggests that no planets are in the line of fire.

If AR1402 hangs together for another two weeks, it will complete its transit of the farside and re-emerge on the Earthside of the sun. A return is unlikely, however, because sunspots rarely last for more than one solar rotation.

An annular eclipse occurs when the Moon passes directly in front of the sun, but the lunar disk is not quite wide enough to cover the entire star. At maximum, the Moon forms a "black hole" in the center of the sun. The “path of annularity” is a strip about 300 km wide and thousands of km long. It stretches from China and Japan, across the Pacific Ocean, to the middle of North America. In the United States, the afternoon sun will become a luminous ring in places such as Medford, Oregon; Chico, California; Reno, Nevada; St. George, Utah; Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Lubbock, Texas. Outside of this relatively narrow zone, the eclipse will be partial. Observers almost everywhere west of the Mississippi will see a crescent-shaped sun as the Moon passes by off-center.

"I like to compare different types of eclipses on a scale of 1 to 10 as visual spectacles," says NASA's leading eclipse expert, Fred Espenak of the Goddard Space Flight Center. "If a partial eclipse is a 5 then an annular eclipse is a 9."

This event should not be confused with a total eclipse. In a total eclipse, the Moon covers the entire surface of the sun, bringing an eerie twilight to observers in the path of totality and revealing the sun’s ghostly corona. The path of annularity cuts across the continental United States at sunset on May 20, 2012. A global map is also available.

Until then, May 20th of this year will have to do.

Annular eclipses have a special charm all their own. During an annular eclipse, sunbeams turn into little rings of light. The best place to see this is on the sun-dappled ground beneath a leafy tree. Hundreds of circular shadows can be found there.

You can also make a handy solar projector by criss-crossing your fingers waffle-style. Rays of light beaming through the gaps will have the same shape as the eclipsed sun.


"On that scale of 1 to 10," he adds, "a total eclipse is 'a million!' It's completely off the charts compared to any other astronomical event." The next total eclipse in the USA is in the year 2017.

BE ALERT FOR MOON HALOES: With the full Moon less than a week away, now is the time to be alert for Moon haloes. Last night in Moray, Scotland, amateur astronomer Alan C. Tough photographed this specimen:Moon halos are formed by ice crystals in high clouds, which catch moonbeams and bend them as shown. The brighter the Moon, the brighter the Moon halo, so any halos this week should be very bright indeed. The Moon is full on Feb. 7th http://www.spaceweather.com/

http://spaceweather.com/submissions/large_image_popup.php?image_name=Jim-Henderson-Moon-Halo-a-Aircraft-qwe1855jhp_1328142788.jpg

http://spaceweather.com/submissions/large_image_popup.php?image_name=Eric-Walker-moon-halo-010212_1328132018.jpg

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ASTROPHOTO-OP: Astrophotographers, ready your cameras. On Friday morning, February 3rd, Comet Garradd (C/2009 P1) will pass approximately 0.5 degrees from globular cluster M92 in Hercules. On Jan. 31st, Rolando Ligustri took this picture of the converging pair using a remotely-controlled 106mm telescope in New Mexico: The ten minute exposure shows the comet's fan-shaped dust tail, which roughly traces the comet's orbit, and its pencil-thin gas tail, which points almost directly away from the sun due to the action of the solar wind.

The star cluster and the comet are both located in the constellation Hercules, high overhead in northern hemisphere skies before sunrise. Sky and Telescope offers a sky map of the comet's path. Observers with computerized GOTO telescopes can track the comet by plugging in orbital elements from the Minor Planet Center.

At the moment, Comet Garradd has an astronomical magnitude of +6.5, invisible to the naked eye but an easy target for backyard telescopes. Forecasters expect it to brighten by a factor of ~2 in the weeks ahead as the comet approaches Earth for a 1.3 AU close encounter in early March. This could be a good time to invest in a Comet Hunter.

BACK TO WORK (UPDATED): After a quiet weekend with no flares of any significance, the sun went back to work on Monday morning and launched a bright coronal mass ejection (CME) into space. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory recorded the expanding cloud during the early hours of Feb. 6th: Update: New images from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) show that this was a frontside event. The explosion occured when a magnetic filament draped over the sun's northeastern limb rose up and snapped. An extreme UV movie from SDO shows the structure lifting off.

PARTING SHOTS: In the past 48 hours, formerly-quiet sunspot AR1410 has turned into a dynamo of activity, rumbling with long-duration solar flares and significantly boosting the sun's extreme ultraviolet output. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory photographed glowing arcs of magnetism over the active region during the early hours of Feb. 8th: The affect of this activity on Earth is minimal because the sunspot is rotating over the sun's northwestern limb. For the next two weeks, the departing 'spot will transit the farside of the sun under the watchful gaze of NASA's twin STEREO probes. The planet most likely to be hit by an eruption during that time is Mercury.

SOLAR WIND: A medium-velocity (450-500 km/s) solar wind stream is blowing past Earth and sparking auroras around the Arctic Circle. NOAA forecasters estimate a 30% chance of polar geomagnetic storms during the next 24 hours.

MELTING SNOW MOON: According to folklore, last night's full Moon was the "Snow Moon." John Stetson watched it melt, apparently, as it rose through a layer of relatively warm air over the waters of Cape Elizabeth, Maine: It's a mirage, caused by sun-warmed air overlying the sea surface. The temperature profile turned Earth's atmosphere into a lens, refracting the rays of the rising Moon and distorting the lunar disk as shown. Jules Verne noticed the same kind of distortion in sunrises and sunsets, and famously likened them to an Etruscan Vase.

That's not all: "A green rim can be seen along the top of the moon," points out Stetson. "And there is a red fringe along the bottom." This is also caused by the prismatic action of the low atmosphere.

SUNSPOT OF INTEREST: For the second day in a row, sunspot AR1416 has doubled in size: movie. Moreover, it has developed a "beta-gamma" magnetic field that harbors energy for M-class solar flares. Any such eruptions this weekend would be Earth directed as the sunspot turns to face our planet.

THE VIEW FROM ABOVE: On Friday, Feb. 10th, NASA released a new set of videos from the International Space Station that officials said was among "the most spectacular night imagery ever taken from space of the United States." After watching the following movie (48 MB), you might find it hard to disagree:

NASA describes the footage: "The sequence of shots was taken January 30, 2012 from 06:13:36 to 06:23:09 GMT, on a pass from northern Mexico to northwest New Brunswick. The video begins looking northeast over Texas, where cities like San Antonio, Houston, and the Dallas/Fort Worth area can be seen. Oklahoma City, Kansas City, and St. Louis are easily distinguished as the ISS continues northeast over the Great Plains. The video concludes with Chicago illuminating the southern edge of Lake Michigan, and auroras shimmering in the distance over Canada."

The auroras in the video appeared on a relatively uneventful night, geomagnetically speaking, when a CME completely missed Earth. Apparently, even the quiet nights are spellbinding onboard the ISS. The eruption hurled a bright coronal mass ejection (CME) away from the sun: SOHO movie. The expanding cloud is not heading for Earth, but in a day or so it might make contact with Venus, which appears to be in the line of fire.

The emergence of a new sunspot at the root of the erupting filament plus the rapid growth of existing sunspot AR1416 could foreshadow more activity in the days ahead.

As solar activity builds toward an expected peak in 2013, a double-barreled sunspot has been doubling in size over the past couple of days and now has the potential to shoot significant eruptions in our direction. It's not certain that active region 1416 will erupt with coronal mass ejections as violent as the blasts that were thrown off by the sun late last month. But it has developed a mixed "beta-gamma" magnetic field that packs enough energy to throw off medium-scale solar flares, SpaceWeather.com reports.

"Any such eruptions this weekend would be Earth-directed as the sunspot turns to face our planet," SpaceWeather's Tony Phillips wrote. Medium-size M-class flares are generally associated with the kinds of solar storms that produce enhanced auroral lights, but not huge inconveniences on Earth. It's the X-class flares you really have to watch out for: That level of solar storming could affect radio communications as well as satellites and electrical grids if the operators of those systems aren't careful.

NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have a wide array of space assets monitoring the sun, and for now all's quiet on the solar front. NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center reported some problems tracking the Advanced Composition Explorer, a satellite that plays a key role in tracking solar storms, but those problems are expected to go away as ACE's orientation with respect to the sun improves.

The heart-shaped coronal mass ejection can be seen at about the 10 o'clock position on this image from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. The prediction center's Facebook page reports that on Friday, the sun threw off a slow-moving coronal mass ejection, or CME — in the shape of a heart, no less. (Just in time for Valentine's Day.) "A preliminary model run predicts this CME will arrive, appropriately enough, on Valentine's Day," NOAA reports. So if you're out with your Valentine that night, particularly in Scandinavia or Canada, watch the skies. Even if the earth doesn't move, the aurora might glow.

Meanwhile, the sunspot region that caused all the auroral fireworks last month, known as AR1402, has moved around the far side of the sun. Solar scientists will be interested to see how that region has changed when it comes back into view. We're still a year out from the anticipated peak in the sun's 11-year activity cycle, so there'll be lots of sun-watching ahead. The best ways to keep track on a daily basis is to check in with NOAA's space weather center and SpaceWeather.com.

Update for 4:45 p.m. ET: Speak of the devil ... SolarHam.com reports that AR1402 has indeed made its reappearance on the edge of the sun's disk and was observed firing off C-class solar flares.

Old active region 1402 is currently producing C-Class flares as it approaches the northeast limb. This region will soon rotate back into direct Earth view. Movies by SDO/HMI and GOES SXI.

CHANCE OF AURORAS: NOAA forecasters estimate a 30% of minor geomagnetic storms on Feb. 13-14 in response to the possible arrrival of a CME that left the sun on Feb. 10th. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras.

OLD SUNSPOT RETURNS: Sunspot AR1402, which unleashed an X2-class solar flare on Jan. 27th, has returned after a two-week transit around the far side of the sun. Two weeks of decay have greatly reduced the old active region: The sunspot group, re-numbered AR1419 for its second apparition, is crackling with B- and C-class solar flares. These flares are minor compared to the eruptions of January. The return of AR1402 is mainly significant for nostalgic reasons .]

Current Solar Data (from NOAA) http://www.n3kl.org/sun/noaa.html

AURORA WHIRLPOOL: On Feb. 14-15, Arctic skies erupted with an unexpected display of auroras that veteran observers said was among the best in months. At the height of the event, a US Defense Meteorological Program satellite photographed a whirlpool of Northern Lights over the Bering Sea: The reason for the outburst is still not completely clear. It started on Feb. 14th when a magnetic disturbance rippled around the north pole. No CME was obvious in local solar wind data at the time; the disturbance just happened. Once begun, the display was amplified by the actions of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF). The IMF near Earth tipped south, opening a crack in our planet's magnetic defenses. Solar wind poured in and fueled the auroras.

QUIET SUN: Considering the fact that Solar Maximum is only about one year away, the sun is experiencing some remarkable spells of quiet. One of them is underway right now. There have been no significant flares for more than five days, and the sun's X-ray output has flatlined:
What's going on? In fact, solar activity is on the rise. For instance, an X-class solar flare on Jan. 27th triggered the strongest solar radiation storm since 2005. Also, auroras have been sighted recently as far south as Virginia and Oklahoma. The quiet interregnums are a sign that the current solar cycle, while active, is not quite as strong as other solar cycles that preceded it--like a mild hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico. According to this point of view, temporary spells of low activity are to be expected. On the other hand, some researchers believe the quiet holds greater significance; it could foreshadow a major drop in solar activity. This is controversial, however, because forecasting the 11-year solar cycle is still an infant science. Indeed, surprises may be in the offing.

This is the Calm before the Storm / Upgrade...

Why - Can't Y'all hear the Thunder a' gatherin' ?

SOLAR ECLIPSE: Today, the new Moon passed in front of the sun, off-center, producing a partial solar eclipse. The only place to see it was from space. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) sends this picture from geosynchronous orbit approximately 36,000 km above Earth's surface: Using a bank of 16 megapixel cameras, SDO observed the event at multiple extreme ultraviolet wavelengths. Scan the edge of the Moon in this 171 Å image: The little bumps and irregularities you see are lunar mountains backlit by solar plasma.

Beyond the novelty of observing an eclipse from space, these images have practical value to the SDO science team. The sharp edge of the lunar limb helps researchers measure the in-orbit characteristics of the telescope--e.g., how light diffracts around the telescope's optics and filter support grids. Once these are calibrated, it is possible to correct SDO data for instrumental effects and sharpen the images even more than before.

Update: A movie of today's eclipse is now available thanks to Steele Hill, SDO Media Specialist at the Goddard Space Flight Center,

The next solar eclipse visible from Earth's surface occurs on May 20, 2012: video.

AURORAS OVER THE USA: A solar wind stream hit Earth's magnetic field during the late hours of Saturday, Feb. 18th, sparking a G1-class geomagnetic storm. Usually, auroras produced by such a mild storm would be confined to Arctic latitudes. Not this time. Northern Lights spilled across the Canadian border into US states such as Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, North Dakota, Nebraska and Minnesota. Bob Conzemius video-recorded the display from the Chippewa National Forest north of Grand Rapids, MN:
Aurora Borealis viewed from the Chippewa National Forest north of Grand Rapids, MN on the evening of February 18, 2012. The last segment was taken on Trout Lake near Bovey, MN. I used Canon 5d Mk II, 24mm f1.4 lens, and 16-35mm f2.8 zoom lens with exposures ranging from 6 seconds to 20 seconds.

The auroral event came from a coronal high speed stream with a southward-pointing magnetic field. The ensuing geomagnetic storm reached minor levels with Kp=5 at its peak, when the auroral oval was directly overhead at latitude 47 degrees N. In Nebraska "I saw auroras on and off for approximately 2 hours from around 9pm to 11pm local time," reports Chris Allington of Crofton, NE. "There was a brief spell where color was visible to the eye with rays and bands." Allington stitched together a series of 20s exposures to create this movie.

At the height of the display, researchers at the Poker Flats Research Range outside of Fairbanks, Alaska, launched a suborbital rocket to investigate how auroras affect GPS systems. Several photographers in the area caught the rocket flying into the Northern Lights.

The surprising display might have been amplified by the action of a co-rotating interaction region or "CIR." CIRs are transition zones between fast and slow solar wind streams. Solar wind plasma piles up in these regions, producing density gradients and shock waves that do a good job of sparking auroras. Local solar wind data suggest that Earth moved through a CIR around 1500 UT on Feb. 18th.

CANYON OF FIRE: A magnetic filament snaking over the sun's northeastern limb rose up and erupted during the early hours of Feb. 24th. The eruption split the sun's atmosphere creating a "canyon of fire," shown here in a movie captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory: The glowing walls of the canyon are formed in a process closely related to that of arcade loops, which appear after many solar flares. Stretching more than 400,000 km from end to end, the structure traces the original channel where the filament was suspended by magnetic forces above the stellar surface.

As erupting magnetic filaments often do, this one launched a coronal mass ejection (CME) into space. The Solar and Heliospheric Observary recorded the expanding cloud: movie. The CME does not appear to be heading for Earth or any other planet.

SUNSET SKY SHOW: When the sun goes down tonight, step outside and look west. Jupiter, Venus and the crescent Moon are forming a broad line in the sky. Daniele Gasparri photographed the arrangement from Bologna, Italy:

Soon, this line will collapse to form a triangle. The best nights to look are Feb. 25th and 26th when the crescent Moon glides by Venus, then Jupiter for a lovely display of celestial geometry.

VIDEO: http://www.spaceweather.com/images2012/23feb12/SSW_cutout_20120223T0700-20120223T0930_AIA_304-193-171_787.500461.mov

SOLAR TSUNAMI: Tangled magnetic fields on the sun's NW limb erupted on February 23th, producing a solar tsunami. You can see the shadowy yet powerful wave rippling away from the blast site in this move from the Solar Dynamics Observatory: The wave is subtle. If you didn't see it the first time, watch the movie again and look for regions on the solar surface that light up as the wave passes by. The nearly transparent ripple of plasma and magnetism was probably ~100,000 km high and, racing outward at a typical speed of 250 km/s, packed as much energy as 2.4 million megatons of TNT (1029 ergs). On the scale of the sun, it doesn't look like much, but you wouldn't want to run into one on Earth.

INCOMING CME: Analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab say a coronal mass ejection (CME) will hit Earth's magnetic field on Feb. 26th at 13:30 UT (+/- 7 hr). The impact could spark a G2-class geomagnetic storm.

RADIATION STORM HITS MARS ROVER: En route to the red Planet, Mars rover Curiosity has experienced the strongest solar radiation storm since 2005. The rover is okay. Researchers say this is a normal part of Curiosity's job as 'stunt double' for human astronauts


On Saturday, Feb. 25th, the line will collapse to form a skinny triangle: sky map. It happens again on Sunday, Feb. 26th, with shifted vertices: sky map. Try to look before the sunset sky fades completely black. Venus, Jupiter and the Moon surrounded by twilight blue is an especially beautiful sight.

A very large filament rupture -- producing a non-earth directed CME (coronal mass ejection) --- this one is fairly large -- and in the next two days we will see the whole high resolution image come through.

Just want to show you something cool that doesn't occur every day (on such a large scale).

here is the link to the SDO website, search through todays date (2/24/2012).

http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/

http://alien-homepage.de/solar/solar_and%20_terrestrial_blog/solar_and_terres...

(click on the link above for my daily updated - solar terrestrial environmental blog with reports on Sun activities and related global events such as volcano eruptions Earthquakes storms floddings...
but also cosmo-dynamic weather predctions for the year 2012!

click here for my central page to access all informations on the NASA/ ESA Solar observatory program: glossaries, real time data, telescopes and archive acess links of :SDO. STEREO, SoHO, GOES, ACE: http://alien-homepage.de/earthquake_statistics_1977-2006/archives/solar/sun_control_center.html

Carol wrote:

Feb 24, 2012 - This event could foreshadow massive seismic events in the northern hemisphere.

Here's the same one with a bit more information and different resolution from our member Instigator/Solarwatcher