M class flares!

[michaelmozina]

http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/rt_plots/xray_5m.html

http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/brows ... 95_512.mpg

Stereo-B caught at least one of the M class flares at about 19:06:19 on the right limb in the upper hemisphere. A new active region also appeared in the southern hemisphere shortly before the first M-class flare. There aren't enough of the STEREO-B 195A images online yet for today to see exactly what happened in the last flare, but the sun is definitely gearing up for it's active phase.

 

[michaelmozina]

http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/brows ... 95_512.mpg
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/brows ... 95_512.mpg

There are the STEREO-B and A views of second M class flare. IMO the A view shows more of the limb action, but both views are fabulous. The active region that is flaring is in the northern hemisphere and more or less pointed our direction. I'll be looking through the ACE data for the next few days, and we could get some interesting auroral activities this week.

 

[michaelmozina]

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/LAT ... it_195.mpg

SOHO looks to have completed it's bakeout process at just the right time. The active region that resulted in the two recent M class flares first appears about February 5th and continues to grow in intensity. The STEREO B images show that at least 4 active regions will rotate our direction over the next week or so.

 

[Mobiusfiftyseven]

I can only imagine the planets around these stars. Cold hard and dead. Well mabe not dead, but you get the picture =D

 

[MeteorWayne]

I can only imagine the planets around these stars. Cold hard and dead. Well mabe not dead, but you get the picture =D

Huh? He's talking about our sun!

 

[Mobiusfiftyseven]

D'oh. i saw M class and automatically assumed the type of star.

 

[michaelmozina]

http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/brows ... 95_512.mpg
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/brows ... 95_512.mpg
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/LAT ... it_195.mpg

The links above are to the STEREO-B, STEREO-A and SOHO images in 195 for today. The same region kicked out two more M class flares today. The sun is definitely more active now than it's been a long time and flares and CME's should become more common.

 

[michaelmozina]

D'oh. i saw M class and automatically assumed the type of star.

Oh well.
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/where.shtml

FYI, the STEREO-B(ehind) satellite (blue dot in the image) sees our sun from about 80 degree behind the Earth's orbit, while the STEREO-A(head) satellite (red dot) sees the sun about 80 degrees ahead of Earth in the same orbit as Earth. SOHO's view is pretty much aligned with Earth and would be close to the green dot in that image. All the images I presented are in the 195A wavelength, and are "high energy" views of the sun from various different angles. The brightest regions represent plasma that is in excess of a million degrees Kelvin.

Now just to confuse you, the sun rotates left to right in all the images, counterclockwise in that diagram, so what we first observe in STEREO-B eventually rotates toward SOHO, and then eventually into the view of STEREO-A. Keep in mind that the sun complete a rotation every 27.3 days or so.

The three satellite combined provide an almost full sphere view of our own sun now, soon to be joined by SDO.

 

[michaelmozina]

http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/brows ... r2_512.mpg
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/brows ... r2_512.mpg

The STEREO Cor2 images would suggest were probably in the line of fire on the last flare. We'll probably see some auroral activity in the next few days from these last couple of events.

 

[michaelmozina]

http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/brows ... 95_512.mpg

Today's M class flare seems have occurred about 11:25:55. That particular frame shows some kind of bleeding effect, and that seems to be when GEOS records the spike.

http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/rt_plots/xray_5m.html