X6.9 Solar Flare!

The largest solar flare yet this solar cycle occurred this morning, August 9, 2011 at 8:05 UT. This flare had a GOES X-ray magnitude of X6.9, meaning it was more than 3 times larger than the previous largest flare of this solar cycle - the X2.2 that occurred on Feb 15, 2011. Here is a movie of this flare, created with JHelioviewer (http://jhelioviewer.org) that contains images from SDO/AIA in the 171 and 304 Angstrom wavelengths.



Ever wonder what is meant by "X-class" and "M-class"? Released today is a great video on what exactly is meant by these "classes" of flares and some of the potential impacts they can have on the technology here at Earth we are becoming dependent upon. See the movie here:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/X-class-flares.html

Third Flare in Three Days

An M9.3 flare (fairly strong-sized) along with a coronal mass ejection (CME) blasted out from the Sun and headed in the general direction of Earth (Aug. 4, 2011). This was the third flare in three days from Active Region 1261. The CME, in the 304 wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light, can be seen distinctly as a darker cloud lifting off and rising up and out into space, something we usually do not get to see so clearly. The movie covers about four hours of activity. It is predicted that the particle cloud will impact Earth in a few days, when it will likely generate bright auroras as far south as Pennsylvania and could possibly upset electronic equipment, especially in space. The power of the storm is ranked as K-7 on a 1-9 scale.

Flash Flare

An M6 flare (medium-sized) associated with a coronal mass ejection blasted out from the Sun and appears to be headed in the general direction of Earth (Aug. 3, 2011). The still show the characteristic spreading of light caused by the brightness of the flare as observed in extreme ultraviolet light. The movie covers about two hours of activity. If this particle cloud bumps Earth in a few days, it would cause bright auroras and could possibly upset electronic equipment,
especially in space.

Marching Spots

A video clip shows an interesting alignment of three good-sized sunspot groups that present the potential for producing solar storms are rotating to the center of the Sun where any eruptions from them could affect us here at Earth (July 28-29, 2011). The lead group has the kind of magnetic field that could produce a large (X-class) flare. The images were taken by SDO's HMI Intensitygram that shows the Sun as it would be seen in filtered white light. This is likely the best parade of sunspot groups we have seen with SDO. And take note of this: each of these sunspots is larger than Earth. Let's see if any fireworks ensue.

... (more info)

SDO Weekly Report for July 22, 2011

On Wednesday July 20 SDO did two maneuvers, an EVE field of view from 1315-1600 UT and an HMI off point from 1630-1910 UT. During these maneuvers the near real time images look cut-off and some data may have been lost. An example of a shifted image is shown on the left. Unlike earlier maneuvers, where the image moved around in the picture, the NRT software is centering the image and we see the edge of the CCD as a straight line.

On 7/16 the MOC backup Real-Time system lost 3 hours of S-band data due to a line hit causing a socket disconnect. The primary string was unaffected so there was no impact.

We have been told that the electricity will be shut off in the room with the Goddard SDO computers this weekend. This means the website will be down from 6:00 am to as late as 3:00 pm ET. The instrument websites are not affected by this outage and neither is the satellite. Sorry for the inconvenience.

SDO maneuvers - July 13

SDO will again be off-pointing away from the Sun today, July 13, so don't be surprised to see partial Sun images, streaks, or no Sun at all! This is a planned maneuver that happens four times per year in order to help the EVE instrument more fully understand its pointing and wavelength calibration. These quarterly events are referred to as "EVE Cruciforms" as the spacecraft is pointed at various angles in pitch (up and down) and then in yaw (left to right) that make a cross-like pointing pattern centered on the Sun.

AIA captures a comet!

AIA captured an incredible movie of a comet's demise as it entered the solar corona:
AIA 171 Å movie (3.9 MB .mov)


Here's the movie of the comet observed by SOHO LASCO (11 MB .mov)

(For those of you who are curious, here's some information about sungrazing comets.)