Dramatic prominences can sometimes be seen looming just beyond the edge of the sun. Such was the case at he begining of March week as a large prominence, visible below, highlighted a highly active recent Sun. A waving sea of hot gas is visible in the foreground chromosphere in great detail as it was imaged in one specific color of light emitted by hydrogen. A solar prominence is a cloud of solar gas held just above the surface by the Sun's magnetic field. The Earth, illustrated in the inset, is smaller than the prominence. Although very hot, prominences typically appear dark when viewed against the Sun, since they are slightly cooler than the photosphere below them. A quiescent prominence typically lasts about a month, and may erupt in a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) expelling hot gas into the Solar System, some of which may strike the Earth and trigger auroras. 
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SPRAWLING SUNSPOT FACES EARTH: Occupying
an expanse of solar terrain more than 280,000 km wide, sunspot complex
AR1981-AR1982 is crossing the center of the solar disk, almost-directly
facing Earth. This morning at the Langkawi National Observatory in
Malaysia, astronomer Karzaman Ahmad photographed the behemoth: Because it's so wide, the entire sunspot complex would not fit on the page. Dozens of dark cores are present in Ahmad's
image. The largest ones are about the size of Earth. Also note the fine
granulation of the solar surface.
Those are Texas-sized bubbles of
plasma rising and falling around the sunspots
like water boiling on top of a hot stove.
The magnetic canopy of AR1981-AR1982 harbors energy for significant eruptions. NOAA forecasters estimate a 50% chance of M-class flares and a 5% chance of X-class flares on Feb. 23rd.
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INCOMING !!!!
A coronal mass ejection (CME) might
be heading for Earth. The cloud blasted away from
the sun during the late hours of Jan 4th following
a long-duration M4-class
solar flare from big sunspot AR1944. This sunspot is a big one and has been seen with out telescopes but of course wearing suitable specialised eye protection. DO NOT TRY THIS UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING. The Solar
and Heliospheric Observatory SOHO recorded the explosion: 
The assymetric CME could deliver
a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field on January
7th, possibly sparking G1-class
geomagnetic storms. NOAA analysts are still processing
the CME imagery for a more precise forecast. However, there might be two CMEs in there. After the first
cloud from sunspot AR1944 emerged, a second cloud
was propelled off the sun's western limb by departing
sunspot AR1936. The mixture of CMEs complicates
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2013 ended with a bang and 2014 started with a bang. At 18:54
UT on January 1st, big sunspot AR1936 erupted, producing
a strong M9-class
solar flare. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured
the explosion's extreme ultraviolet flash:
The movie shows a dark filament of
plasma racing away from the blast site, but most
of the material fell back to the stellar surface.
Nevertheless, the explosion did produce a CME that
could deliver a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic
field later this week. NOAA analysts are still evaluating
this possibility.
The M9-flare of New Year's Day followed
close on the heels of an M6-flare on New Year's
Eve. Sunspot AR1936 produced both explosions. The
New Year's Eve event produced a minor, slow-moving
CME that is not expected to disturb Earth's magnetic
field if and when it does arrive.
Sunspot AR1936 is active, but new
sunspot AR1944 looks even more potent. The behemoth
active region emerged over the sun's southeastern
limb on Jan 1st (extreme left in the image below): + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
2013 ended with a bang. At 21:58
UT on Dec. 31st, sunspot AR1936 erupted, producing
a strong M6-class
solar flare. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded
the extreme ultraviolet flash (see video below). Amateur images of the explosion show
a
dark filament of plasma flying away from the
blast site. The explosion probably hurled
a coronal mass ejection (CME) into space which could deliver a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic
field later this week. We'll find out more about
this possibility when coronograph data from SOHO
and STEREO reach Earth. Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, more flares are in the
offing. Sunspot AR1936 has a 'beta-gamma-delta'
magnetic field that harbours energy for strong eruptions.
NOAA
forecasters estimate a 40% chance of M-class
flares and a 10% chance of X-flares
on Jan. 1st.
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SIX SUNSPOTS ON THE SUN, two of them are facing Earth (1934
and 1936) and have 'beta-gamma' magnetic fields that contain sufficent energy for strong flares. Both have
been quiet for some days and they show no signs
of an imminent eruption. This has prompted NOAA
forecasters to place low odds on flares today: a
25% chance of M-flares
and a 1% chance X-flares however if they did erupt, we would get hit.
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Sun expected to 'flip upside down' as magnetic field reverses its polarity - this was the headline of the science section in today's ( Wednesday 25 December 2013) online Telegraph. No wonder people are confused and the media is going crazy with theories of gloom and disaster when such drivel is being put out by the more serious press. They ignored or chose to ignore but probably just did not bother to check that only the day before, one of the latest papers on this was published in the journal "Astronomy and Astrophysics" entitled "Reversals of the solar magnetic dipole in the light of observational data and simple dynamo models" by D. Moss, V. V. Pipin, D. Sokolo and J. T. Hoeksema. It says that observed data from the Wilcox Solar Observatory matches models of how the Sun's internal dynamo works.
Another article that was more informative and accurate than the Telegraph's was actually released at the previous Solar magnetic dipole reversal in February
15, 2001 by NASA and is equally valid today --
You can't tell by looking, but scientists say
the Sun has just undergone an important change. Our star's magnetic
field has flipped.The Sun's magnetic north pole, which was in the northern hemisphere
just a few months ago, now points south. It's a topsy-turvy situation,
but not an unexpected one."This always happens around the time of solar maximum,"
says David Hathaway, a solar physicist at the Marshall Space
Flight Center. "The magnetic poles exchange places at the
peak of the sunspot cycle. In fact, it's a good indication that
Solar Max is really here." Above: Sunspot counts, plotted here against
an x-ray image of the Sun, are nearing their maximum for the
current solar cycle.
The Sun's magnetic poles will remain as they are now, with
the north magnetic pole pointing through the Sun's southern hemisphere,
until the year 2012 when they will reverse again. This transition
happens, as far as we know, at the peak of every 11-year sunspot
cycle -- like clockwork. Not quite clockwork as it is overdue and has not yet happened. It is not a simple matter of looking at a solar compass needle and watching it flip. Detailed observations of sunspots have been obtained by the Royal Greenwich Observatory
since 1874. These observations include information on the sizes and positions of sunspots
as well as their numbers. These data shows that sunspots do not appear at random over the
surface of the sun but are concentrated in two latitude bands on either side of the
equator. A butterfly diagram (below) showing the positions
of the spots for each rotation of the sun since May 1874 shows that these bands first form
at mid-latitudes, widen, and then move toward the equator as each cycle progresses.
Blue denotes North polarity of the sunspot and yellow South polarity.
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CHRISTMAS CONJUNCTION
IN SPACE: According to some scholars,
the Star
of Bethlehem might have been a close encounter
between Venus and Jupiter. The two brightest planets
in the night sky, merged, would have made a spectacle
of Biblical proportions. This Christmas, NASA's
STEREO-B probe is observing something similar. Instead
of Jupiter and Venus merging, however, the combined
planets are Jupiter and Earth:
Though not really a "Solar" item, the
STEREO-B probe (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) together with its A companion was launched for observing the Sun, 'A' flying in our orbit around the Sun but ahead of Earth and the other 'B' also on our orbit but trailing Earth, thus providing a "stereo" view.
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