AR 11748 unleashed another X-class flare last night. It was an X1.2, peaking at 0148 UTC, 15-May-2013 (9:48 pm ET, 14-May-2013). The location was N11, E63, a little south of the earlier flares but in the same active region. Here is the post-flare arcade, nicely displayed in AIA 335 the light of Fe XVI, which measures plasma at 2.5 million Kelvin. This is almost 10 hours after the peak and the loops are still bright.
Today at 2:10 pm ET SDO will do a momentum management burn. We will fire the thrusters to force the reaction wheels to go to the desired spin rates. We will be off-line for about 30 minutes.
