no unexplained “contrails” off the coast, we hope
SOLAR RADIO BURSTS: This week’s sharp increase in solar activity has turned the sun into a radio transmitter. Bursts of shortwave static are coming from the unstable magnetic canopy of sunspot 1283. Tuesday in New Mexico, amateur radio astronomer Thomas Ashcraft recorded some samples at 21 MHz: listen. Radio listeners should remain alert for this kind of solar activity as sunspot 1283 continues to seethe.
STRONG FLARE ACTIVITY CONTINUES: On Sept. 8th at 1546 UT, sunspot 1283 unleashed an M6-class solar flare. This continues the active region’s 3-day trend of daily powerful eruptions. Yesterday’s blast, an X1.8-class event, produced a bright flash of extreme UV radiation and hurled an inky-dark plume of plasma into space. Click to view the movie from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory:
X-flares of Solar Cycle 24: There have been only a handful of X-flares since the beginning of new Solar Cycle 24.
Sept. 6 (X2),
Sept. 7 (X2).
(X1)
Sunspot 1283 has a “beta-gamma-delta” magnetic field that harbors energy for X-class solar flares. Credit: SDO/HMI