A Gift from the Sun: Two Picturesque Sunspot Eruptions

The Sun has been fairly quiet in the past couple of weeks. Currently we're at a 0-20% chance for a CME or M/X-class flare. To begin Christmas Eve, a filament of magnetism connected to sunspot AR1386 and erupted during the early hours. Extreme UV-wavelength cameras onboard the SDO recorded the blast. The C-5 class eruption hurled a billion-ton CME into space, but not towards Earth. With the cloud sailing left of our planet, Christmas geomagnetic storms are unlikely at this time.

Within 4 hours after the first, on the opposite limb where a region is quickly fading from Earth's view, another blast was captured by SDO, this one just as stunning, if not more than the first.

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Merry Christmas to you all!

So graceful! Its amazing how power and light can form a dance so full of grace and beauty...It boggles the mind how large such explosions are, and somewhat humbling as well. Thank you so much for sharing!!

reply to post by murkraz

That was totally cool. Now we have the instruments in place to watch these things. Never get tired of watching the sun. Thanks for bringing it. These are time lapsed. What is the duration of the second CME? Thanks in advance for your reply.

Ooooh...Nice. Thank You for posting this. I needed a mental health break. This fit the bill perfectly

Des

Originally posted by intrptr
reply to post by murkraz

 

That was totally cool. Now we have the instruments in place to watch these things. Never get tired of watching the sun. Thanks for bringing it. These are time lapsed. What is the duration of the second CME? Thanks in advance for your reply.

The second was roughly 2 and a half to 3 hours in length, closer to 3. The first was just a little over an hour or so it seems.

Glad you all enjoyed it! For such fiery chaos it sure feels peaceful.

What could be better than this -
a fiery abstract sun gift!

Merry Christmas!

Originally posted by murkraz
Originally posted by intrptr
reply to post by murkraz

 

That was totally cool. Now we have the instruments in place to watch these things. Never get tired of watching the sun. Thanks for bringing it. These are time lapsed. What is the duration of the second CME? Thanks in advance for your reply.

The second was roughly 2 and a half to 3 hours in length, closer to 3. The first was just a little over an hour or so it seems.

Glad you all enjoyed it! For such fiery chaos it sure feels peaceful.

Keeps me warm. TY for that reply. Imagine millions of Nukes going off for three hours... oh SNAP! Good thing for gravity. Keeps the sun out there where it belongs!

really cool thanks for posting, so powerful yet so graceful

reply to post by murkraz

Beautiful, How long before some folks start saying that this the beginning of the end i wonder? Every year it seems like there's yet another doomsayer, it's almost as if they can't wait to be proved right at the expense of humanity. I'd like to think of this as natures way of saying "Seasons greetings" lol, after all it is the "Reason for the season"!

Just here to bump the thread to point out that there have been 5 CMEs in the past 24 hours, the 2 largest appear to be earth-directed and will hit our magnetosphere in about 36-72 hours, we'll know when the data is out.

For a particularly quiet Sun that's quite the activity.