Sun activity going strong! 3 Ms and a CME
on its way
Posted by C. Alex Young and Raúl Cortés and
Armando Caussade
July 19, 2023
July 18-19, 2023. Today’s sun activity
included an M2.1 flare by sunspot
AR3363, blasted at 20:27 UTC on July 18.
Despite being located at the very edge of the southwest limb,
this region is still is giving us a lot of flares. It was
today’s flare leader, again! GOES-18 SUVI image via NOAA.
Sun activity for July 19, 2023, is going strong! 3 Ms and a CME
on its way
Today’s top news: For the second day in a row,
we’ve seen one, two, three M flares in quick succession.
This time the back-to-back M flares came from AR3363 and AR3376. The
three Ms exploded in the span of less than an hour, with the largest
being an M2.1 flare from AR3363 at 20:27 UTC on July 18. Now at
the very edge of the southwest limb, giant sunspot AR3363 continues
flaring and is, once again, the lead flare producer of the day. What
a spot! Today’s other M flare producer, AR3376, is showing an
interesting north-south magnetic configuration and an
anti-Hale alignment, meaning that
its magnetic field is reversed compared to other sunspots in the
same solar hemisphere. This may be a factor in its production of M
flares, and could be a source for more blasts as AR3376 transits the
Earth-viewed side of our sun. We’ll watch closely. By the way,
yesterday’s M5.7 flare from AR3363 continues to be the source of
discussion. The highly energetic long-duration flare created a polar cap absorption S1 particle
event, and a coronal mass ejection (CME) with a partial halo. Despite having occurred
far to the southwest, a component of this CME is anticipated to
reach us at Earth with a glancing blow on July 20, which may bring G1 (minor) to G2 (moderate) geomagnetic storms and auroral
displays. Aurora-chasers, get ready! FULL STORY https://earthsky.org/sun/sun-activity-solar-flare-cme-aurora-updates/?mc_cid=06ffef91e3&mc_eid=fbac876af9
