Raging sunspot cluster announces return for third time by firing off solar flareThe solar flare responsible for the most intense geomagnetic storm in 20 years has announced itself with a solar flare while rotating into view for the third time.
The M9.3 solar flare captured on 23 June.
This event is very, very close to an X-class solar flare, which is the highest intensity solar flare.
Solar flares are measured based on their X-ray intensity, going through the letters A, B, C, M and X.
While travelling across the far side, it fired off the most intense solar flare in the current solar cycle, an X12.
Raging sunspot cluster announces return for third time by firing off solar flare
The solar flare responsible for the most intense geomagnetic storm in 20 years has announced itself with a solar flare while rotating into view for the third time.
The M9.3 solar flare captured on 23 June. (Image Credit: NASA/SDO/News9).
New Delhi: A particularly long-lived and violent sunspot cluster, bearing the designation of AR 3723 has rotated back into view for the third time, and has promptly fired off an M9.3 flare. This event is very, very close to an X-class solar flare, which is the highest intensity solar flare. Solar flares are measured based on their X-ray intensity, going through the letters A, B, C, M and X. Each of these letters are accompanied by a finer-grained scale between 0 and 9. The X-class flares are ten times more intense than the M-class flares, which are ten times more intense than the C-class flares and so on.
X-class flares have no upper limit on the accompanying number. Anything below B is considered close to background level activity on the sun. At times, solar flares can be accompanied by coronal mass ejections (CMEs), where hot gas or plasma from the outer atmosphere of the Sun is violently dumped into space. Multiple CMEs associated with solar flares fired by AR 3723 overtook each other and merged, carrying with them a bit of the magnetic field of the Sun, causing the historic geomagnetic storm in May.
AR 3664 to AR 3697 to AR 3723
AR 3723 has survived two treks across the far side of the Sun, after first appearing in May. It was responsible for the most intense geomagnetic storm in 20 years, before rotating out of view for the first time on 15 May, and then returned as AR 3697 on 27 May. While travelling across the far side, it fired off the most intense solar flare in the current solar cycle, an X12. On it’s return, it caused the most intense solar radiation storm since 2017, before rotating out of view for the second time on 11 June. Earlier today, this problematic cluster, now bearing the designation AR 3723 rotated back into view.
