Three Large Sunspot Regions, End of July 2011

Описание: On the solar disc's eastern limb (on our left, as we view the movie), we see sunspot regions rotate into our view, and then 'march' across the solar disc. There are five, actually, but three of them are very large. They are the scene of B-, C-, and M-class flares.

The movie show, at the end, one of the M-class flares (from the middle of the three large sunspot groups, sunspot region NOAA 1261). An M-class flare is a moderately-large flare.

The period covered in this movie is from July 25 (00:00:00 UTC) through July 31 (23:59:59 UTC), 2011. The view first is the Intensitygram from the Solar Dynamics Observatory HMI instruments, then, the SDO AIA instruments at the 171-Angstrom wavelength.

This sunspot activity leads to a more-energized Ionosphere, improving shortwave radio communications. (By August 2, the 10.7-cm radio flux reached 125, which was very welcomed by shortwave radio communicators such as Amateur radio operators, trans-oceanic airline communications networks, and so on). Of course, with more sunspot activity, there is an increase in the number of X-ray flares, and possibly of coronal mass ejections (CMEs). These may, in turn, cause some degradation of communications for short periods of time.

Note: Sunspot Active Region 1261 (the middle of the three large regions) developed into a "beta-gamma-delta" magnetic field configuration (by August 1st) that had the potential energy for X-class solar flares. Any such eruptions during the first week in August would be geo-effective as the sunspot is squarely facing Earth).

More info: http://sunspotwatch.com/

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Source: SDO AIA and HMI