An intermittent sunspot caused a double solar flare on Monday, April 25, knocking out radio power in Asia and Australia.
The Sunspot AR2993 erupted with two M1 flares in quick succession, according to spaceweather.com. Solar flares are flares of electromagnetic radiation; Class M flares are medium-sized flares that can disrupt certain radio frequencies and sometimes expose astronauts in space to higher-than-normal radiation levels.
Sunspot AR2993 is “medium-sized,” according to heliophysicist Dean Besnell of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. He told Live Science in an email last week, but its area spans hundreds of millions of square kilometers — the Earth would rest in the active zone as comfortably as an egg in a nest.
Sunspots are areas of the Sun where the magnetic field is temporarily much stronger than the surrounding areas. These magnetic forces prevent the flow of hot gas from the interior of the Sun, making the sunspots cooler than the surrounding areas. Solar flares occur when magnetic field lines near sunspots are explosively reorganized.
Sometimes these radiation flares also trigger coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which are explosions of solar plasma.
The past few weeks have been full of sunshine, with many active sunspots sending out flares. Solar activity occurs in regular 11-year cycles, which have been recorded since 1775. The Sun is currently in Solar Cycle 25 and is in a period of accelerated activity.
Solar Cycle 25 is expected to peak in late 2024 or early 2025, which means that the frequency of sunspots, solar flares, and CMEs is expected to increase.
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It is possible that some of these flares and the CME have an effect greater than that of the average M1 double that of the sun just set off. Last week, April 19-20, a different sunspot (AR2992) erupted with a strong Class X flare.
X flares are 10 times more powerful than M class flares and can cause radiation storms to disrupt satellites, radio communications, and even the power grid on Earth. Fortunately, Earth didn’t bear the brunt of last week’s X flare, as the sunspots weren’t directly facing the planet.
Large solar flares and large amounts of auroras can also produce gorgeous auroras farther south than usual from Earth’s poles. Solar particles coming from the sun interact with the magnetic fields surrounding the Earth, excitating air molecules in the upper atmosphere and causing them to emit photons of light. The result? Moving curtains of light in green, blue and pink.
As the sun continues its unstable activities, aurora forecasts can be found at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center.
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This article was originally published by Live Science. Read the original article here.