Awakening Sun (December 27, 2009) SOHO

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For the first time in over a very quiet solar year, the Sun as seen by SOHO is sporting 5 active regions (Dec. 22, 2009). The brightest regions in the extreme UV image are magnetic active regions. And the brighter an area appears, then we know that its magnetic energy is stronger. Two of these regions are associated with dark sunspots when viewed in visible wavelengths; the other areas have not developed into sunspots yet. This activity could signal that the long solar minimum is beginning to give way to greater activity levels, but we will just have to wait and see.


SOHO began its Weekly Pick some time after sending a weekly image or video clip to the American Museum of Natural History (Rose Center) in New York City. There, the SOHO Weekly Pick is displayed with some annotations on a large plasma display




Sunspot 1039 (Monday)
12/28/2009 by Kevin VE3EN at 14:15
Solar Update - Sunspot 1039 located in the southern hemisphere remains about the same size as yesterday. The X-Ray flux has been quiet since the B-Class flare from early yesterday. There will continue to be a chance for more B-Class activity.

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Signs Of Life On The Sun


Sunspot Activity Returns To The Sun

2009 is ending with a flurry of sunspots. So far this month, the visible disk of the sun has had spots 67% of the time, a sharp increase compared to the annual average. Furthermore, all six of December's sunspot groups have been members of new Solar Cycle 24. These numbers could herald the sun's awakening from the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century and a livelier sun in 2010.


SOLAR ACTIVITY: This morning, Dec. 29th, a slow-moving coronal mass ejection (CME) lumbered over the western limb of the sun. A coronagraph onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) recorded the eruption:

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The billion-ton cloud could have come from any of several active regions now on the back side of the sun--namely, former sunspots 1035, 1036 and/or 1038. Earth is not in the cloud's path (and neither is Venus, despite how it looks in the SOHO movie) so the event will not produce any Northern Lights. For auroras, browse the gallery: