1:00 PM | ***Strongest solar flare yet of Solar Cycle 25 took place earlier today...CME to strike this weekend with widespread auroras possible***
Paul Dorian
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare — seen as the bright flash in the center – on Oct. 3, 2024. The image shows subsets of extreme ultraviolet light that highlight the extremely hot material in flares which are colorized in red and gold. Credit: NASA/SDO
Overview
Solar Cycle 25 is nearing its solar maximum and - as is typical during this phase of a solar cycle - there has been a lot of solar activity in recent weeks with numerous sunspots. The strongest solar flare yet during this current solar cycle took place earlier today with an explosion originating from sunspot region known officially as “AR3842”. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded today’s blast as an X9.0 (where X-class denotes the most intense flares) and it may result in widespread auroras this weekend as the “coronal mass ejection” strikes Earth.
Sunspot region AR3842 (circled) unleashed the strongest flare yet of the current Solar Cycle #25 and the CME strikes Earth this weekend with auroras on the table. Image courtesy NASA
Details
Solar flares are powerful bursts of energy which can impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts. Today’s solar flare – the strongest yet for Solar Cycle 25 - peaked at 8:18 AM (ET) and was captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory as a bright flash. Today’s flare is classified as an X9.0 flare where X-class denotes the most intense type.
Radiation from the flare ionized the top of Earth’s atmosphere according to spaceweather.com triggering shortwave radio blackouts over Africa and Europe, the sunlit portion of Earth at the time of eruption. The shortwave radio blackouts experienced over Europe and Africa were a result of the radiation from the solar flare reaching Earth and ionizing the upper atmosphere upon arrival. This ionization creates a denser environment for high-frequency shortwave radio signals, which facilitate long-distance communication, to travel through. As these radio waves pass through ionized (electrically charged) layers, they lose energy due to increased collisions with electrons which can weaken or entirely absorb the radio signals.
Preliminary coronagraph images show a “halo” coronal mass ejection or CME - a plume of plasma and magnetic field - emerging from the blast site which is likely to strike the Earth on Sunday, October 6th. As a result, auroras are on the table this weekend in the usual northern latitude areas and potentially farther to the south compared to normal. A couple of days ago on October 1st, there was an X7.1 class solar flare that originated from the same sunspot region and its associated CME is closing in on Earth and likely to arrive by tomorrow, October 4th, potentially causing a strong geomagnetic storm.
Graphic courtesy NOAA/Space Prediction Center
This uptick in solar activity during the past several weeks comes as Solar Cycle 25 near its maximum phase which is likely to be reached sometime in 2025. Solar Cycle 25 began during December of 2019 and is expected to continue until around 2030. The cycle is characterized by the sun’s transition from a relatively calm state to one that is active and then back to quiet again...often over about an 11-year time period. There has not been a single day in 2024 or 2023 that featured a spotless sun and only one such day took place in 2022. During the last solar minimum phase in 2019, there were 281 spotless days which made up 77% of the year.
Meteorologist Paul Dorian
Arcfield
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