Now might be a good time to sign up for space weather alerts. So far none of the eruptions has been squarely Earth-directed, but this could change in the days ahead as the sun's rotation turns the active region toward our planet. This is the third M-flare in as many days from this increasingly active sunspot. There was, however, no bright CME (plasma cloud) hurled in our direction, so the event is unlikely to produce auroras in the nights ahead. Radiation from the flare created a wave of ionization in Earth's upper atmosphere that altered the propagation of low-frequency radio waves.
#BRIGHTNESS TRACKING MFLARE MOVIE#
Click on the image to view a movie of the blast from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory: M5 SOLAR FLARE: Active sunspot 1121 has unleashed one of the brightest x-ray solar flares in years, an M5.4-class eruption at 15:36 UT on Nov. Schiaparelli Astronomical Observatory in Varese, Italy (Nov.
6) from Gregg Ruppel of Ellisville, Missouri (Nov. 7) from Feys Filip of Crete, Greece (Nov. 7) from Gregg Ruppel of Ellisville, Missouri (Nov. 8) from Tenho Tuomi of Lucky Lake, SK, Canada (Nov. More images: from Gil Esquerdo of Whipple Observatory, Mt. It's easy to find, too, little more than a degree from Saturn in the eastern sky before dawn. Various reports put the brightness of the comet between 7th and 9th magnitude, invisible to the naked eye but an easy target for telescopes such as the Comet Hunter. Ice pockets could be evaporating, comet-caverns collapsing, who knows?Īmateur astronomers are encouraged to monitor developments. The icy visitor from the outer solar system made its closest approach to the sun (1.7 AU) in late October, so it has recently received a strong dose of solar heating. Indeed, Comet Ikeya-Murakami might be experiencing a similar event. "The shape of its atmosphere reminds me of Comet Holmes after it had an outburst in 2007." "The comet is rapidly changing," he reports. 7th using a robotic telescope in New Mexico. The clock is for getting up before dawn, and the telescope is for seeing this: NEW COMET IKEYA-MURAKAMI: Newly-discovered comet C/2010 V1 (Ikeya-Murakami) is putting on a good show for anyone with a backyard telescope and an alarm clock.
NOAA forecasters estimate an 85% chance of M-flares during the next 24 hours.
Nevertheless, the active region's magnetic field is complex and harbors energy for more eruptions. No strong flares were recorded for the rest of the weekend. SOLAR ACTIVITY UPDATE: After unleashing one of the brightest X-ray flares in years on Saturday, Nov.
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