X1.4 Class Solar Flare + CME / Solar Watch July 13, 2012 a very strong Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) is now Earth-Bound

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Published on Jul 12, 2012 by SolarWatcher

Major X1.4 Solar Flare and Earth Directed CME
Active Region 11520 unleashed a Major X1.4 at 16:47 UTC July 12th. Associated with this blast was a Strong R3 Radio Blackout/Fade Out over Central America. As this active region was earth-facing a very strong Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) is now Earth-Bound with impact projected late July 14-Early July 15th where strong Geomagnetic storms will be possible.

SolarWatcher website
http://solarwatcher.net
Earthquake Forecasting Channel
https://www.youtube.com/thebarcaroller
Earthquake Reporting Channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/EQReporter
Soho Website
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/
Solar Soft website
http://www.lmsal.com/solarsoft/latest_events/
Solar Terrestrial Activity Report
http://www.solen.info/solar/
WSA-Enlil Solar Wind Prediction
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/wsa-enlil/cme-based/
Helioviewer
http://www.helioviewer.org/
Quality Solar Website
http://www.solarham.com
Estimated Planetary K index information
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/alerts/k-index.html
GOES Xray Flux Data
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/rt_plots/xray_5mBL.html
Sunspot Information from Solar Monitor
http://www.solarmonitor.org/
Quality Weather Website
http://www.westernpacificweather.com
Space Weather Website
http://www.spaceweather.com/

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REVISED FORECAST: The CME launched toward Earth by yesterday's X-flare is moving faster than originally thought. Analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab have revised their forecast accordingly, advancing the cloud's expected arrival time to 09:17 UT (5:17 am EDT) on Saturday, July 14th. Weekend auroras are likely. Aurora alerts: text, voice.

X-FLARE! Big sunspot AR1520 unleashed an X1.4-class solar flare on July 12th. Because the sunspot is directly facing Earth, everything about the blast was geoeffective. For one thing, it hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME) directly toward our planet. According to a forecast track prepared by analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab, the CME will hit Earth on July 14th around 09:17 UT (+/- 7 hours) and could spark strong geomagnetic storms.

First picture auroras over the geographic South Pole you can see the actual Pole in the foreground, the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in the background.
Canon 7D, 8mm fisheye, 5sec, f3.5, iso 6400

Second picture, auroras over the dark sector, where the telescopes are located, in the foreground MAPO with the SPUD telescope, in the background SPT and DSL.
The second picture are our typical night time auroras (NZT) not as bright as the day time ones (first picture) but nice colors and nice ray structure.

http://spaceweather.com/

UPDATE: There is a coronal mass ejection (CME) associated with the July 12 X-class flare. Rough estimates based on the data currently available -- namely observations from STEREO-B (the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) -- show that the CME is traveling in an Earth direction at over 850 miles per second.

This image from the Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the sun at 12:45 PM EDT on July 12, 2012 during an X1.4 class flare. The image is captured in the 304 Angstrom wavelength, which is typically colorized in red. Credit: NASA/SDO/AIA



This image combines two sets of observations of the sun at 10:45 AM EDT, July 12, 2012 from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) to give an impression of what the sun looked like shortly before it unleashed an X-class flare beginning at 12:11 PM EDT. The image incorporates light in the 171 Angstrom wavelength, which shows off giant loops of solar material overlying the middle of the sun over Active Region 1520 where the flare originated. The second set of observations is called a magnetogram, which highlights magnetic fields on the sun. Together these kinds of observations can help scientists understand the magnetic properties of the sun that lead to giant explosions like flares.



An X1.4 class flare erupted from the center of the sun, peaking on July 12, 2012 at 12:52 PM EDT. It erupted from Active Region 1520 which rotated into view on July 6.



This image taken by the Solar Dynamics Observatory's HMI instrument shows sunspot 1520 and it's regional neighbors, 1519 and 1520. Earth is shown to scale.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/News071212-X1.4flare.html

Not that i trust nasa much at all but these images are kinda cool thanks! JT!

The sun unleashed a huge flare Thursday (July 12), the second major solar storm to erupt from our star in less than a week.

The solar flare peaked at 12:52 p.m. EDT (1652 GMT) as an X-class sun storm, the most powerful type of flare the suncan have.

"It erupted from Active Region 1520, which rotated into view on July 6," NASA officials said in an alert. Active Region 1520, or AR1520, is a giant sunspot currently facing Earth.

According to NASA and the Space Weather Prediction Center (SPWC), which is operated by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, today's sun storm registered as an X1.4-class solar flare. It is more powerful than the X1.1 flare that erupted on July 6 from another giant sunspot known as AR1515, making this latest tempest the strongest solar storm of the summer so far.

The sunspot region AR1520 could be up to 186,411 miles (300,000 kilometers) long at its peak, solar astrophysicist C. Alex Young of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center told SPACE.com. It is about 50 percent larger than last week's sunspot AR1515. [Photos of Huge Sunspot AR1520] "It's quite extensive," Young said, adding that sunspots the size of AR1520 are normal as the sun nears its peak of its weather cycle in 2013.

But while sunspot AR1520 may sound like a solar behemoth, it is actually a relatively modest sunspot example, and promises more sun storms to come, Dean Pesnell, project scientist for NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, told SPACE.com.

"It's certainly not done. It's only halfway across the face of the sun right now," Pesnell said from the Goddard center in Greenbelt, Md., which oversees the sun-watching SDO mission. "We'll be able to watch it from the Earth for at least another week."