SUNSPOT NUMBERS ARE BOUNCING BACK: After a two week decline, which reminded some observers of Solar Minimum, sunspot numbers are bouncing back. The emergence of multiple new sunspots on the solar disk plus a new farside sunspot rotating over the sun's eastern limb is driving the sunspot number back up to 100. This is a normal fluctuation en route to Solar Max.

POSSIBLE EARTH-DIRECTED ERUPTION: A solar magnetic filament erupted on Halloween night, carving a "canyon of fire" in the sun's southern hemisphere. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the debris as it slingshot into space: 


A boomerang presentation of the Halloween eruption. 

The walls of the canyon are at least 10,000 km high and 10 times as long. Fragments of the magnetic filament may soon emerge from the blast site in the form of a CME. Fresh data from SOHO coronagraphs will soon reveal if it has an Earth-dorected component.

SpaceWeather.com