 |
“An explosion near giant sunspot 484 on Oct. 22nd hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME, pictured above) toward Earth. Forecasters expect it to arrive on Oct. 24th and possibly trigger a strong geomagnetic storm…sunspot 484 unleashed an X1-flare on Oct 19th, and sunspot 486 produced an M9-flare (almost X-class) on Oct. 22nd. Further eruptions are possible as they rotate across the face of the sun over the next two weeks.” From Spaceweather.com
Sunspot 484 is pictured in the animation below. Sunspot 486 was not directly facing the earth when it produced this CME. The animation above is over a seven hour period. |
Sunspots
Thursday, October 23rd, 2003
