Massive sunspot clusters have lately erupted on the surface of the Sun. They're part of a solar cycle that's about to reach its apex.
Sunspots are black areas on the Sun's surface, colder than the rest of the planet. Solar flares are produced around the star's dark regions.
NASA officials said that coronal mass ejections are divided into five categories, each 10 times more powerful than the last: A, B, C, M, and X.
In a screen grab taken from a handout timelapse sequence provided by NASA / SDO, a solar spot in the center of the Sun is captured from which the first X-class flare was emitted in four years on February 14, 2011.
Clusters of Massive Sunspots Found on Sun's Surface
According to Live Science, the newest sunspot clusters, are known as active regions 2993 and 2994 (AR2993 and AR2994). These two are to be accompanied by another sunspot cluster that is currently lurking beneath the Sun's northern hemisphere and appears to have triggered a massive solar flare that passed Earth just a few nights ago.
Every colony is made up of several sunspots and spans millions upon millions of nautical kilometers, a distance far greater than the Earth's radius. Electromagnetic disturbances of the Sun's visible solar corona produce sunspots, revealing the much cooler areas beyond.
According to the Space Weather Prediction Center, statistics suggest that the current degree of sunspot production is comparable to that of the previous sunspot phase and even lower than it was in the last two sunspot output phases.
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NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory mission investigator Dean Pesnell also pointed out per Space Weather Gallery that a spectacular class X1.1 flare seen on Sunday, April 17, originated from a third sunspot collective spinning beyond AR2993 and AR2994 onto the Sun's observable surface.
Solar storms and CMEs can generate spectacular northern lights. However, they can also damage electrical lines, observatories, telecommunications equipment, and, possibly, space travelers, who are not shielded by the earth's gravitational field.
Larger and more detailed sunspot patches become visible when sunspot activity is near its peak and about to culminate in solar flares. Flares and coronal outburst yellow cards will become more regular during the next few years, raising the danger threshold of solar output.
Sunspots Swarm To Swallow Earth?
Solar flares and coronal mass ejections might be due to the energy released by the sunspot clusters.
Solar physicist Dean Pesnell of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center told Live Science in an email that he is convinced that specialists, as well as the rest of humanity, will see more active zones in the future years.
The Weather Channel explained in a video that a solar flare or ejection, among other things, can disrupt power grids and GPS communications. They can, however, produce stunning auroras. Sunspots are formed when the Sun's outer layer is disturbed, exposing colder layers underneath.
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