All Articles Tagged As: sunspots

Sunspot 1302 continues to turn toward Earth (9/27/2011)

Behemoth sunspot 1302 unleashed another strong flare on Saturday morning -- an X1.9-category blast at 5:40 am EDT. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the extreme ultraviolet flash. ...> Full Article

Something new on the sun: SDO spots a late phase in solar flares (9/14/2011)

Analysis of 191 solar flares since May 2010 by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has recently shown a new piece in the pattern: some 15 percent of the flares have a distinct "late phase flare" some minutes to hours later that has never before been fully observed. This late phase of the flare pumps much more energy out into space than previously realized. ...> Full Article

New method detects emerging sunspots deep inside the sun, provides warning of dangerous solar flares (8/24/2011)

Sunspots spawn solar flares that can cause billions of dollars in damage to satellites, communications networks and power grids. But Stanford researchers have developed a way to detect incipient sunspots as deep as 65,000 kilometers inside the sun, providing up to two days' advance warning of a damaging solar flare. ...> Full Article

Sunspots 1271 and 1272 May produce mid-level flares (8/17/2011)

Sunspots 1271 & 1272 are rotating onto the Earth facing side of the Sun. Both sunspots are actively producing low-level C & B class flares. ...> Full Article

New insights on how solar minimums affect Earth (6/18/2011)

Observations have shown that magnetic effects on Earth due to the sun did in fact reach a minimum -- indeed they attained their lowest levels of the century -- but some eight months later. The scientists believe that factors in the speed of the solar wind, and the strength and direction of the magnetic fields embedded within it, helped produce this anomalous low. ...> Full Article

Solar mystery solved (3/9/2011)

The sun has been in the news a lot lately because it's beginning to send out more flares and solar storms. Its recent turmoil is particularly newsworthy because the sun was very quiet for an unusually long time. Astronomers had a tough time explaining the extended solar minimum. New computer simulations imply that the sun's long quiet spell resulted from changing flows of hot plasma within it. ...> Full Article

X-Class Solar Flare, 2nd in 30 Days (3/9/2011)

An X-Class solar flare lit off the earth facing side of the sun. The X1.5 flare came from sunspot 1166, which is squarely aimed directly at us. ...> Full Article

Solar Flare Erupts Directly At The Earth, Should Hit Early Tuesday Morning (2/13/2011)

Sunspot 1158 swelled up like a water balloon over a 4 hour period then popped, unleashing an M6.6 category blast DIRECTLY at the earth. It is traveling at 1119 km/s, and should hit the earth in 37 hours, or 5-6AM Mountain Standard Time. This is the largest solar flare we have seen in quite a while, and it should produce exciting results for us travelers on the spaceship earth. ...> Full Article

Solar 'Current of Fire' Speeds Up (3/14/2010)

What in the world is the sun up to now? ...> Full Article

A lightning strike in Africa helps take the pulse of the sun (11/16/2009)

Tel Aviv University's Professor Colin Price has developed a more definitive and reliable tool for measuring the sun's rotation when sunspots aren't visible -- and even when they are -- based on observations of common lightning strikes on earth. ...> Full Article

Measuring the Sun's hidden variability (9/26/2009)

Every 11 years, the sun undergoes a furious upheaval. Dark sunspots burst forth from beneath the sun's surface. Explosions as powerful as a billion atomic bombs spark intense flares of high-energy radiation. NASA is launching a sensor named EVE on the Solar Dynamics Observatory will be able to see these explosions. ...> Full Article

World largest telescope at NJIT's Big Bear captures sun's magnetic field better (5/22/2009)

NJIT's new 1.6-meter clear aperture solar telescope -- the largest of its kind in the world—is now operational. The unveiling of this remarkable instrument -- said to be the pathfinder for all future, large ground-based telescopes -- could not have come at a more auspicious moment for science. This year marks the 400th anniversary of Galileo's telescope that he used to demonstrate that sunspots are indeed on the Sun. ...> Full Article

Hidden Boundaries Of Sunspots Pump Out Plasma Into Interplanetary Space (10/16/2008)

Using new information from Hinode, an international mission to study the sun, scientists have found that the dim areas at the edges of active regions may hold the key to understanding how the sun converts vast amounts of energy from its surface into the solar wind ...> Full Article

How Round is the Sun? (10/5/2008)

Scientists using NASA's RHESSI spacecraft have measured the roundness of the sun with unprecedented precision, and they find that it is not a perfect sphere. During years of high solar activity the sun develops a thin "cantaloupe skin" that significantly increases its apparent oblateness. ...> Full Article

Sun goes longer than normal without producing sunspots (6/10/2008)

The sun has been laying low for the past couple of years, producing no sunspots and giving a break to satellites ...> Full Article

March 2008 Solar Cycle Prediction (3/21/2008)

Predicting the behavior of a sunspot cycle is fairly reliable once the cycle is well underway (about 3 years after the minimum in sunspot number occurs. Prior to that time the predictions are less reliable but nonetheless equally as important. Planning for satellite orbits and space missions often require knowledge of solar activity levels years in advance. ...> Full Article

Hinode Views 'Magnetic Trilobite' Sunspot (9/29/2007)

"We've never seen anything quite like it," says solar physicist Lika Guhathakurta from NASA headquarters. ...> Full Article