View Astronomy Picture of the Day Archives
Oct 24, 2014
Image Credit & Copyright: Randall Shivak and Alan Friedman (Averted Imagination)
Courtesy of http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Image Credit & Copyright: Randall Shivak and Alan Friedman (Averted Imagination)
Courtesy of http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
As you (safely!) watched the progress of yesterday's partial solar
eclipse, you probably also spotted a
giant
sunspot group.
Captured in this sharp telescopic image from October 22nd
the complex AR 2192 is beautiful to see, a
sprawling solar active region comparable in size
to the diameter of Jupiter.
Like other smaller sunspot groups,
AR 2192 is now crossing the
Earth-facing side of the Sun
and appears dark in
visible light because it is cooler than the surrounding surface.
Still, the energy stored in the region's twisted magnetic fields is
enormous and has already generated powerful explosions, including
two
X-class solar flares this week.
Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) associated with the flares have not
affected planet Earth, so far.
The forecast
for further activity from AR 2192 is still
significant though, as it swings across the center of
the solar disk and Earth-directed CMEs become possible.
