--- Chuck Hards <chuckhards@yahoo.com> wrote:
The sun is as featureless as I have ever seen it, in white light at 20X today. Not a single spot. I've always thought it just didn't look right when it appears spotless. Somehow a sunspot is comforting.
Although 808 is just rotating into view over the visible solar horizon - it appears to be an extremely active region - just received this auto email notice - ========================== Official Space Weather Advisory issued by NOAA Space Environment Center Boulder, Colorado, USA SPACE WEATHER ADVISORY BULLETIN #05- 7 2005 September 07 at 01:31 p.m. MDT (2005 September 07 1931 UTC) **** POWERFUL SOLAR FLARE ERUPTS **** One of the largest solar flares on record occurred today, September 07. Very active Region 808 produced a powerful X17 flare (R4 on the NOAA Scale) observed on the NOAA GOES satellite at 07/1740 UTC (September 07, 1:40 p.m. EDT). This flare, the 4th largest in the last 15 years, erupted just as the Region 808 sunspot cluster was rotating onto the visible disk of the sun. Intense radio emissions were also associated with this flare. A very bright and fast coronal mass ejection was observed on coronagraph imagery; however, the material was not Earth directed. An S1 - S2 radiation storm is expected following this eruption, but is not expected to begin until late on September 07 or early September 08. This event created a complete blackout of high frequency communications on the daylit side of Earth. Communications used by emergency services along the Gulf Coast may have experienced problems due to this flare. Low frequency navigation systems may also have experienced a period of significant degradation. Over the past two weeks, this active region produced a series of significant solar eruptions as it made its passage around the back side of the Sun. Significant eruptions are expected in the coming days. Agencies impacted by space weather storms may experience disruptions over the next two weeks. These include spacecraft operations, electric power systems, HF communications, and low-frequency navigations systems. <snip> __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com