Posted on 12/16/2009 11:22:05 AM PST by TaraP
INCOMING CME: This morning at 0120 UT, an eruption of magnetic fields around sunspot 1035 produced a long-duration C4-class solar flare and hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME) in the general direction of Earth.
High-latitude sky watchers should prepare for auroras when the CME arrives on or about Dec. 18th
Sunspot 1035 is growing rapidly and it is now seven times wider than Earth. This makes it an easy target for backyard solar telescopes. Yesterday, Rogerio Marcon of Campinas, Brazil, photographed a maelstrom of hot plasma and magnetic filaments connecting the sunspot's dark cores:
Solar activity is picking up," he says.
The magnetic polarity of the spot identifies it as a member of Solar Cycle 24--the cycle we've been waiting for to end the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century. One spot isn't enough to end the lull, but sunspot 1035 could herald bigger things to come. Stay tuned for updates.
MONSTER FIREBALL: On Monday morning, Dec. 14th, at 3:59 am Pacific Standard Time, a piece of extinct comet 3200 Phaethon hit Earth's atmosphere over the Mojave desert in California. This was the result. The fireball occurred during the Geminid meteor shower, which peaked on Dec. 13th and 14th when Earth passed through a stream of debris from 3200 Phaethon. In some places, people saw 200+ Geminids per hour. In the Mojave desert, one was enough...
Oh boy I can plant my garden early.
A giant collective sigh of relief is heard in Copenhagen................
Thank you Lord!
I pray it continues. I would like a summer in 2010.
Maybe that will help my heat bill this winter.
I’m sweating and it’s 25 degrees out. What a difference the sun makes!!
I can’t read this post. I burnt my Retinas’.
Update - C-Class flare activity continues as a C3.7 flare took place at 13:00 UTC Wednesday. The largest Solar Flare of Cycle 24 thus far took place early Wednesday morning. It registered C5.3 on the flare scale. It is small in comparison to flares at solar max, however it is a good sign nonetheless. Click HERE for a movie of the flare. A CME was associated with the C5.3 flare and an image is below. This may possibly produce Aurora by Friday when the CME arrives. Sunspot 1035 is an impressive sunspot cluster consisting of around 20 spots. There will remain a chance for B-Class and perhaps more C-Class flares. The solar flux reached 82 on Tuesday. The sunspot number of 38 is a new Cycle 24 record.
But THEY say the sun has nothing to do wtih global warming. Idiots.
This sunspot was obviously caused by CO2.
Oh, they KNOW it does. What they’re hoping is that you DON’T!.............
10m DX tonight baby ...
I'm praying my children and grandchildren don't have to live through an ice age.
I can hear the celebration in Copenhagen all the way in Indiana. But one spot and one flare don’t make for much of a cycle. Even at a “minimum” there are some sunspots.
ALGORE must have contacted the SUN.
Me too!
I feel like I’m living “The Midnight Sun” on Twilight Zone.
>>ALGORE must have contacted the SUN.<<
The Sun must have just heard that reading of his lovely Global Warming poem.
It was just the Sun laughing it’s a$$ off.
Agreed. I'd like to see the sun spotless until the global warming scam is nailed for the fraud it is. The current cooler weather overcame summer temperature increases due to improper temperature data manipulation by NASA, CRU, Penn State and/or others. If temperatures rise again due to return of the sunspot cycle, it will be harder to overcome the perception of increasing warming due to man's activities as the general population is not going to understand the deliberate manipulation of the temperature data. It would be much better if temperatures were cold as that is much more easily understood by the public.
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