NASA SDO - M8.7-class Solar Flare, Jan 23, 2012

The Chinese New Year certainly started with a bang this morning. At approx. 04:00 UT a strong and long duration M8.7-class solar flare exploded from Active Region 1402.

NASA SDO captured this event and thanks to ESA/NASA SOHO and NASA STEREO Behind spacecrafts, we have also learned of a very quick moving Coronal Mass Ejection. The CME is traveling at approx. 2,200 km per second and the Goddard Space Weather Lab predicts the arrival of this CME on earth to be January 24, 2012 at approx. 14:18 UT (+/- 7 hours).

It also shows that Mars will get hit too, several hours after Earth.

These kinds of events can cause problems for spacecrafts in geosynchronous, polar and other orbits passing could be affected by the cloud's arrival. In addition, strong geomagnetic storms are possible, so high-latitude sky watchers should be alert for Aurorae.

Credit: NASA SDO

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• NASA
• SDO
• Solar
• Dynamics
• Observatory
• Sun
• solar
• flare
• space
• weather
• M-class
• CME
• coronal
• mass
• ejection
• chinese
• new
• year
• astronomy

[lighttowers]

(2) "The Sun activity during the last max of 11 year cycle/2001 was much higher than now 2012 ". Well, solen.info has a complete archive. Comparing the main solar parameters of Jan. 2012 and 2001, the solar flux/ sun spot number was indeed 20% higher in 2001.As everyone can see, there are sunspots producing flares and eruptions and those which don`t. But the solar flux is correlated to/ decays after flare activities, the question is rather, how many eruptions occured 2012 compared to 2001.REPLY?

[LittleSDOHMI]

@lighttowers let me see if I can find some statistics. Reality is, we are still learning new things about the Sun almost weekly or daily.

[ILoveDominikaDetko]

I Love the sun shining bright , but not too bright, alright?

Hope that star will spend us - a lot of years - energy and warmth,

shining with all its beauty upon us and light our days,

smiling there midday on the horizon with all its strength,

reflecting all the colors here in twinkling rays.

In love and fun this lil Poem to our Sun, shine bright form far my lillte Star.

But not too hot and bright - or it will kill all my sight,

on the beauty you have bring - to earth and all the living things.

[pils64]

December 21st comes early this year.

[CelicaGTaplaGamaei]

καύλα είναι 

[GigaElectricBird]

@LittleSDOHMI where's the auroras?

[lighttowers]

@LittleSDOHMI ( last 1/ I dont want to "text you down", allthough there would be a lot more to say. So- Just help yourself on my HP if so. is interested on my results for quake prediction. I asked NASA before, but I took a lot of NASA images for my HP.( thanks 4 the last free credits , while Germany has turned into an Orwell state! Please greet my old friend Mr Jesco from Puttkammer by me ( who escaped) .Hope he is still alive and cosmic conscience will keep him young for many years more! .

[lighttowers]

and of course so far as I can say now - in 90% of theCME impacts events, these events took place in what I call " main impact region resp. on its tectonic boundaries. Its easier to predict where a quake will be than when. There is large archive and a special graphic I developed on my HP (links are below my vids) To get eruption statistic for 2001 and 2012 you have just to compare the x-ray graphs. I think noone counted all eruptions from the Sun. but its one of the best NASA projects ever!

[lighttowers]

@LittleSDOHMI I I started a documentary of Earth directed CMEs in May 2010 since there was evidence for coincidences with Earthquake and volcano activities Meanwhile i have got good evidence , that makes possible to predict Earthquakes now alt least within 4 days. Then I made some more research last year, whether the coincident events such as volcano a. quakes storms rapide icemelts are related to those longitudes where CME impact along the meridian. >2

[bbobby79er]

@MrGhostblood SURE IS FROM A DISTANCE

[bbobby79er]

@pils64 YOU AND ME BOTH



[Archie23rulz]

@lighttowers Yeah, Houston, about that tom thumb that went off on the Sun yesterday...