Two Groups!

Wow! Looking at the sun today, you can see two scoops groups of raisins sunspots!
Check out the SOHO MDI image:

Space weather, here we come!

Achievement Unlocked: 3rd Most Boring Solar Cycle

Today is September 1st. Time to look at the sunspot number over the past month!

EVERY.
SINGLE.
DAY.
WAS ZERO.*

The last time this happened? June, 1913. 1913!!!
Solar Cycle 23 has now secured the bronze for the longest solar cycle in recorded history at 150 months. Gold and silver go to cycles 4 and 6 with 164 and 153 months, respectively. What is the perspective of a space science blogger on these matters?


*Sunspot numbers were zero using the international sunspot number. Provisional numbers from NOAA SWPC show a sudden jump to 10 sunspots on the 31st.

More on the new active region.

A few days old, but the TRACE satellite took a great snapshot of the new active region:

This is rotated 90 degrees clockwise, obfuscating the view a tad. This was taken as the active region was rotating around the limb and into view. SpaceWeather.com is reporting that this active region is not a full-fledged sunspot yet, but working its darnedest to become one.

Be sure to check out more on the TRACE mission.

The sun is waking up.

Here's another image of the sun's surface. A sunspot has definitely formed; we just might be moving out of solar minimum.

What you're looking at is an image from the EIT (Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope) aboard the SOHO science satellite. This picture is created by detecting 195 Angstrom wavelength light, which corresponds to temperatures of 1.5 million degrees Kelvin. The important feature is the bright area on the right side of the sun. This is a sunspot, or an area of intense magnetic activity. This is a region where solar flares can develop, which makes my job far more fun.

Be sure to check out the latest images from the SOHO satellite.

I messed up!

After a period of no sunspots, the sun finally showed some activity as a single sunspot came into view. Unfortunately, I didn't jump on this news right away and now I cannot find a clear picture of the spot. This is quite disappointing, especially if I'm going to make this blog a good source of news concerning space weather. The best I can find is some questionable activity on the limbs, but nothing concrete. I'll pay better attention and post pictures as soon as we have some solar action!

Apparently I am a Psychic.

Minutes after posting about how little solar activity there is at the moment, I have found out that it's even calmer than I thought! We are currently in the fourth longest solar cycle in recorded history and will likely climb further up the list as the sun spot number (SSN) continues to fall. In March, we experienced 28 days without a sun spot (last year, March saw only 17 days without a blemish.) The averaged sunspot number values imply that we are likely to dip lower in the solar cycle, with fewer sunspots in April and possibly May.

Boring.

What are we missing out on? Check out this and this.

Solar min sucks.

All's quiet on the space weather front.

I may have made a critical mistake by instituting this blog during solar minimum. Space weather is boring right now. booorrrriiinnnggg.

The solar cycle is the 11 year period in the number of sunspots appearing on the surface of the sun. During maximum, the number of spots is at a peak and solar storms occur frequently. This leads to great videos of solar flares and coronal mass ejections, space weather storms at Earth, strong aurora, and bad impacts on technology (more on that in forthcoming posts.)

Right now, we're in solar minimum. What's happening in space? Jack crap, that's what. Just to give you an idea of how boring the sun is, examine the following:

This graph, from the Space Weather Prediction Center, is up-to-date as of the end of February. The blue/black lines are actual data; the red line is the sunspot forecast. As far as sunspots, we have bottomed out. This limits the amount of space weather news I can blog about -- especially exciting stuff.

As for the forecast, this is an extremely difficult prediction and rarely is accurate. In a few weeks, SWPC's annual Space Weather Workshop will commence and an updated prediction will be reported. While I won't be attending this year, I will blog on any important news that I hear from it.