April 11, 2022: The corpse of old sunspot AR2987 exploded today, April 11, 2022, hurling debris directly toward Earth. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the eruption:

The S-shaped magnetic filament at the base of the explosion is a classic “sigmoid structure.” Solar magnetic fields often assume this shape just before they explode. One study shows that sigmoid precursors are present in over 50% of CMEs.

Indeed, shortly after the explosion, a full-halo CME emerged from the blast site. Here it is. The CME is expected to reach Earth on April 14th; a new NOAA model pinpoints its arrival time at 1100 UTC. The impact could spark a G2-class geomagnetic storm. Aurora alerts: SMS Text

April 10, 2022: Earth’s magnetic field was supposed to be quiet on April 10th. Instead a strong (G3-class) geomagnetic storm broke out. At the apex of the disturbance, auroras crossed the Canadian border into multiple northern-tier US states. Ron Risman sends this time-lapse movie from Milton, New Hampshire:

“We don’t get to see the aurora all that often in New Hampshire, but this solar cycle so far has been fantastic,” says Risman. Before the show was over, the lights spread west all the way to Washington state.

What caused the storm? The prime suspect is a “canyon of fire” CME, which hit Earth’s magnetic field on April 8th. The impact was weak and, at first, it seemed to have little effect. Geomagnetic unrest increased on April 9th as Earth passed into the CME’s strongly magnetized wake. The arrival of an unrelated solar wind stream on April 10th tipped conditions into G3-category storming.

more images: from Shayne Smith of Charlevoix, Michigan; from Dirk S. Miller of Rice Lake, Wisconsin; from Rocky Raybell of Keller, Washington; from Christy Turner of Calgary, Alberta; from Thomas McCarty of Fairbanks, Alaska; from Ian Griffin of Hoopers Inlet, Otago Peninsula, New Zealand; from Gunjan Sinha of Saskatoon, SK, Canada

April 5, 2022: New sunspot counts from NOAA confirm that Solar Cycle 25 is racing ahead of the official forecast–and the gap is growing:

Sunspot counts have now exceeded predictions for 18 straight months. The monthly value at the end of March was more than twice the forecast, and the highest in nearly 7 years.

The “official forecast” comes from the Solar Cycle Prediction Panel, a group of scientists representing NOAA, NASA and International Space Environmental Services (ISES). The Panel predicted that Solar Cycle 25 would peak in July 2025 as a relatively weak cycle, similar in magnitude to its predecessor Solar Cycle 24. Instead, Solar Cycle 25 is shaping up to be stronger.

In March 2022, the sun produced 146 solar flares, including one X-flare and 13 M-flares. Auroras were sighted as far south as Colorado (+38N) and Nebraska (+42N). Multiple shortwave radio blackouts disrupted communications on ships at sea and airplanes flying over the poles. If current trends continue, April will be even busier. Stay tuned. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text

April 2, 2022: On March 30th, the sun did two seemingly contradictory things at once. It produced a loud radio burst and, at the same time, caused a deep radio blackout. Both were side-effects of an X1.3-class solar flare. First, let’s listen to the radio burst:

The gentle roar of static you just heard emerged from the loudspeaker of a shortwave radio receiver in New Mexico. Amateur astronomer Thomas Ashcraft recorded it. “The sun was well positioned in my radio antennas for the X1.3 solar flare,” says Ashcraft. “The left channel of the audio file is 22.2 MHz, the right channel is 21.1 MHz.”

This is a Type II solar radio burst. Shock waves from the flare rippled through the sun’s atmosphere, creating plasma oscillations that emit shortwave static. Briefly, the sun turned itself into a natural radio transmitter.

While the sun was busy creating radio waves, it was equally busy wiping them out. Radiation from the flare ionized the top of Earth’s atmosphere, preventing terrestrial radio stations from bouncing their signals over the horizon as usual. This map shows where manmade signals suddenly faded:

Ashcraft’s observatory in New Mexico is located near the middle of the blackout zone. Take another look at his dynamic spectrum. Horizontal lines are terrestrial radio stations. They vanished for about 10 minutes around the time of the flare. The effect is strongest at frequencies below ~20 MHz.

In Gainesville, Florida, radio astronomer Francisco Reyes recorded the blackout as well. “I used an array of 4 dipoles with an FSX-7 radio spectrograph (Radio JOVE),” he says.

Would you like to record an event like this? NASA’s Radio JOVE program makes it easy. Off-the-shelf radio telescope kits allow even novices to monitor radio outbursts from the sun, which are becoming more frequent as Solar Cycle 25 intensifies. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text