Sol (Sun) and its phenomena

Following yesterday's flare the same sunspot produced the second largest flare of the current cycle, look's like a hit for the C's last session statement : "Explosive revelations and events coming!" :halo:

SIGNIFICANT X-CLASS SOLAR FLARE: Fast-growing sunspot AR3842 erupted on Oct 1st (2220 UT), producing the second-strongest solar flare of Solar Cycle 25. The X7.1-category blast caused a shortwave radio blackout over Hawaii and hurled a CME into space. A preliminary NASA model predicts it will hit Earth on Oct. 5th. Stay tuned for the geomagnetic storm forecast. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text​



Above: An X7.1-class solar flare on Oct. 1, 2024. Credit: NASA/SDO​
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October 3 UPDATE: BAM, X9 flare! Largest of the solar cycle so far​


At 12:10 UTC today, shortly after the cut-off for our daily sun update, the sun blasted an X9 flare: the biggest flare of Solar Cycle 25 so far. It came from sunspot region AR3842, which fired an X7 flare on Tuesday. This region is currently near the center of the solar disk, so any sun-stuff ejected during this flare would likely be on a course for Earth. Stay tuned.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1841830905834316018

earthsky.org

| EarthSky

earthsky.org earthsky.org
 
The sun remains active, two more X flares, on the 7th an X2 and early this morning anther long duration X1.8 wich trigered a proton event :

BIG X-CLASS SOLAR FLARE: Sunspot AR3848 was directly facing Earth this morning, Oct. 8th (0156 UTC), when it unleashed a powerful X1.8-class solar flare. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the extreme ultraviolet flash:​


​


This explosions lasted more than 4 hours, so long that it lifted a massive CME out of the sun's atmosphere. Take a look at these preliminary coronagraph images from NASA's STEREO-A spacecraft. This CME will certainly hit Earth later this week, potentially sparking a new round of geomagnetic storms.​
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Just dropping these here because I found it interesting.
My friend shared this photo that she saw on Facebook, claimed to be taken during the auroras on 10/10:19C404BF-D5C9-487B-B7BE-5AFE158171A8.jpeg
Of course people were making jokes about mushrooms and aliens, and at first glance I thought it was the dumbest photoshopping I’d ever seen. But then I zoomed in on that odd little shape. Some said “lens flare,” and some said “STEVE.” And some said “comet.” But I got the distinct feeling of plasma - maybe just a part of it or maybe just a second in time of a plasma blip.

I got curious, and I tried googling various captured images of plasma discharges and the like, to see if I could find the same shape. Then I came across this, posted on Pinterest. Unfortunately, I don’t know when it was taken:

BDAF79D7-6D0E-4A07-8A89-CD5E46C76DE2.jpeg


I have no attachment to the idea that these photos are unedited. I don’t know who these people are, or exactly where they are, or anything. But I thought it worth sharing, in case anyone here has some insight.

Side note, I saw very strange lightning once in between CME impacts. It was a bright light hanging just over the trees. It looked like a big headlight just hanging there for a few seconds. and then bolts came out the side and bottom. The thunder seemed tame for how close it looked. I wondered if it was ball lightning, as there was a storm some miles away, but no other activity around our home.
 
pinkfreud said:
Just dropping these here because I found it interesting.
My friend shared this photo that she saw on Facebook, claimed to be taken during the auroras on 10/10:
Click to expand...
Thanks for sharing this image as it brought memory from 2010 as me my wife and daughter witnessed something similar but to a much larger scale. What made me do the connection is the color purple in the inner circle and as for our observation, it look like the opening of a portal and crossing into our reality of some object. In our case, it was a huge triangular UFO that entered our reality. As for what crossed in this picture, I can’t say, a probe, a ship I don’t know but it remind me of a recent session where the C’s told us that asteroid could be brought here true portal from other dimension. Was this the opening of a portal and some object crossing into our reality again I wonder.
 
Laurentien2 said:
Thanks for sharing this image as it brought memory from 2010 as me my wife and daughter witnessed something similar but to a much larger scale. What made me do the connection is the color purple in the inner circle and as for our observation, it look like the opening of a portal and crossing into our reality of some object. In our case, it was a huge triangular UFO that entered our reality. As for what crossed in this picture, I can’t say, a probe, a ship I don’t know but it remind me of a recent session where the C’s told us that asteroid could be brought here true portal from other dimension. Was this the opening of a portal and some object crossing into our reality again I wonder.
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Those look like spontaneously occurring plasma flares in the upper atmosphere. They are natural and human beings have forgotten what they are. They are often mistaken for UFOs or impending catastrophic events. They are not.
 
A new group of sunspots emerging from east limb of the sun looks very active, scientists had officially declared solar cycle 25 reached its maximum phase :

LARGE SUNSPOTS ARE TURNING TOWARD EARTH: An impressive group of large sunspots is emerging over the sun's southeastern limb. The group's detailed magnetic configuration is not yet known. However, we know it's explosive. A powerful X3.3-class solar flare just exploded from the sunpot group's magnetic canopy.​


X-CLASS SOLAR FLARE: Emerging sunspot AR3869 erupted this morning (Oct. 24th @ 0357 UTC), producing a slow X3.3-class solar flare. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the hour-long flash:​


​


Extreme ultraviolet radiation from the flare ionized the top of Earth's atmosphere. This, in turn, caused a shortwave radio blackout over Australia and Southeast Asia. Ham radio operators may have noticed loss of signal at frequencies below 30 MHz for as much as an hour after the flare.​

This explosion almost certainly produced a CME. The US Air Force is reporting a Type II solar radio burst, a natural signal that comes from shockwaves at the leading edge of CMEs. Characteristics of the burst suggest a CME traveling 1.3 million mph.​
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A reminder from Session 18 May 2024, CME/solar flares' effects were discussed :

Laura said:
(L) Okay. I just wanted to make sure we handled your question with sufficient thoroughness. And we found out a few little things. Okay. It says here ‘Niall and Joe have questions about the CME.’ So, ask your questions, Niall and Joe.

(Niall) When was the last year in which auroras were seen as widely around the world as they were last week?

A: 1989.

Q: (Joe) Is it just the strength of the current that would dictate damage to Earth's electrical infrastructure?

A: Direction of eruption also.

Q: (Chu) So, that's why it didn't fry everything.

(Joe) Okay. Are there any effects on human beings from an event like the one from last week?

A: Of course!

Q: (Joe) And would the answer to the question of what those effects are, be: ‘Depends on the person’?

A: Yes.

Q: (Joe) So, they can be positive or negative?

A: Yes.

Q: (Joe) I see. Does it involve DNA changes, essentially?

A: Sometimes.

Q: (Joe) What is the most common effect, let's say, on human beings from such things?

A: Quickening.

Q: (Joe) Okay. So, is that in any way similar to the purported effects of the Wave about hyperkinetic sensate and amplifying what is in a person?

A: Minor similarity.

Q: (Joe) So, what does quickening mean, then, in terms of the solar flare effects, or solar storm effects?

A: Whatever is present is "jumpstarted".
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SOLAR RADIATION STORM IN PROGRESS: Solar protons are raining down on Earth today following an unexpected explosion behind the sun's western limb. This solar radiation storm currently registers category S1 (Minor), but it will probably intensify in the hours ahead to S2 (Moderate) based on current trends.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1859694683745824969

Update: Moderate (S2) radiation storm threshold was reached at 01:12 UTC (Nov 22).

https://twitter.com/x/status/1859766776986222813
 
I didn't know one of the solar maximum's effects is to cause the atmosphere to change in size! With implications for satellites.

www.livescience.com

Solar maximum just knocked 3 satellites out of orbit. Here's why more may be on the way.

The Sun's activity is what gives us beautiful auroras — but it also has dramatic negative effects on satellites that go around Earth in a low orbit.
www.livescience.com www.livescience.com

But for satellites in low Earth orbit, the most consistent effect of solar activity is that the extra energy gets absorbed into the outer atmosphere, causing it to balloon outward.

As a result, all satellites less than 1,000km from Earth experience a significant increase in atmospheric drag. This is a force that disrupts their orbit and causes them to fall towards the planet's surface.

Notable satellites in this region include the International Space Station and the Starlink constellation. These satellites have thrusters to counteract this effect, but these corrections can be expensive.

Low Earth orbit also contains many university satellites, such as the Binar CubeSats. Cube satellites are rarely equipped with tools that can adjust their altitude, so they're entirely at the mercy of space weather.
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The guy writing the article is sadly misinformed with his 'good news' comment:

The good news is the Sun will calm down again. Despite the current unexpectedly high solar activity, it will likely slow down by 2026, and is expected to return to a solar minimum in 2030.
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The following was just posted on one of the Russian TG astronomy channels:

Soon we should expect a powerful superflare on the Sun!?

Where is this information coming from? We don't know how to predict solar flares and their power. But we were able to study more than 50,000 stars very similar to the Sun and track their flares!

Such work was carried out by a team of scientists led by Valery Vasiliev from the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen (Germany). And they came to the conclusion that once every 100 years on stars like the Sun occur “Superflashes” - these are flashes that are 50 times more powerful than the event Carrington, which occurred in 1859 and then from this event burned telegraph poles, and the glow was visible all over the planet and so bright that people confused it with dawn!

If something similar (and especially, 50 times more powerful) happens now, and the emission is directed towards the Earth, the consequences will be much worse: irradiation of astronauts, failure of satellites, power outages and much more.

So how did Vasiliev and his team learn of this danger? They examined brightness measurements of 56,450 sun-like stars by NASA's Kepler space telescope between 2009 and 2018 - far more than in any previous similar study. And they found 2,889 superflares on 2,527 sun-like stars! And this frequency of flares indicates that “superflares” (>10^34 erg) occur about once every 100 years on Sun-like stars (same mass, composition, temperature, and age). Previously, “superflares” were thought to occur about once every 1,000 to 10,000 years.

This dramatic change in the view of the frequency of such events occurred as this group of scientists made a new and more advanced method of processing data from the Kepler Space Telescope and they found 1941 new, previously unseen “superflares”. Vasiliev and his team published their paper on this study in the journal Science.

Vasiliev cites this comparison for “superflashes” in his paper:
Carrington event (September 1, 1859) ~5 × 10^32 ergs
The most powerful flare in the last 60 years (October 28, 2003) = 7 × 10^32 erg = “X17” (although, there is an opinion that November 4, 2003 was “X28”) Superflare >10^34 erg.

It is not yet clear when the last “superflare” on the Sun was, as we have only in the last 60 years begun to consistently monitor these solar events and estimate their power. Yes, and at the same time such an event could occur on the back side of the Sun, which is not visible from Earth.

P.S. Note that earlier the frequency of such “superflashes” estimated mainly on the examples of “Miyake events”, when observed jumps in atmospheric concentration of radioactive carbon isotope. They were discovered by examining the isotopic composition of the tree rings of old trees. And this method only accounted for those superflashes that were directed toward the Earth. And now we estimate all the superflares on Sun-like stars (given that we can only see 50% of their surface).
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Here's the link to the paper.
 
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X45 solar flare (Nov 2003)

I think the superflare that occurred on 4 Nov 2003, with an estimated strength of X28+ oversaturated the GOES detectors so much (the flare went on for 11 minutes), that it later was corrected (modelled) having been an X45 flare. I remembered this correction from memory, but had to look on the internet. Albeit not all sources today report that correction. Wikipedia does mention it.

Several major X-flares were part of the so called "Halloween Solar storms" between mid Oct to early November 2003.

en.wikipedia.org

2003 Halloween solar storms - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
pinkfreud said:
Just dropping these here because I found it interesting.
My friend shared this photo that she saw on Facebook, claimed to be taken during the auroras on 10/10:View attachment 102757
Of course people were making jokes about mushrooms and aliens, and at first glance I thought it was the dumbest photoshopping I’d ever seen. But then I zoomed in on that odd little shape. Some said “lens flare,” and some said “STEVE.” And some said “comet.” But I got the distinct feeling of plasma - maybe just a part of it or maybe just a second in time of a plasma blip.

I got curious, and I tried googling various captured images of plasma discharges and the like, to see if I could find the same shape. Then I came across this, posted on Pinterest. Unfortunately, I don’t know when it was taken:

View attachment 102758


I have no attachment to the idea that these photos are unedited. I don’t know who these people are, or exactly where they are, or anything. But I thought it worth sharing, in case anyone here has some insight.

Side note, I saw very strange lightning once in between CME impacts. It was a bright light hanging just over the trees. It looked like a big headlight just hanging there for a few seconds. and then bolts came out the side and bottom. The thunder seemed tame for how close it looked. I wondered if it was ball lightning, as there was a storm some miles away, but no other activity around our home.
Click to expand...

Reflections within complex lens elements, due to strong light sources

In my personal opinion, these are internal reflexes among lens elements. VERY common ! Especially with complex lenses, in particularly this happens most often with wide angle zooms.

Also notice that the angle of these reflections i always ALIGNED (on the opposite end of the optical axis) when strong light sources are present - either inside or outside the image frame ! In the daylight photo, it was the sun. In the night image it was a strong light source just below/outside the frame on the lower side. (You can test this yourself, especially when making longtime exposures, it becomes much more apparent, while it often less visible to the naked eye / on screen).

Of course you can steer reflections; by moving the camera slightly away until the reflexes are gone. Usually the further away a strong light source is (in/outside the frame), the more moves the light reflex equally out of the frame as well.

Wide angle lenses, especially ultra wide angle zooms, have a huge amount of lens elements, sometimes as many as 16 elements. There you get a lot of light bouncing around, when a strong light source enters the frame (or right outside the frame). Sometimes lens shades can help, but not always, because you can't shade an ultra wide angle lens effectively from stay light, due to the large angle [or view] those lenses cover)
 
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