Solar Update (December 4)

[Richard]

Solar activity has been at very low levels the past 24 hours with only B-Class flares taking place. Sunspot 1131 remains a large, but quiet sunspot. New Sunspots 1132 and 1133 were numbered on Saturday. Sunspot 1133 is the return of old Sunspot 1124. Elsewhere, Sunspot 1130 is about to rotate onto the western limb and out of direct earth view.There will remain a chance for C-Class flares.

http://www.solarcycle24.com/index.htm

[Rocky_Shorz]

any worries over the large filament swinging around towards us?

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/eit_304/512/latest.jpg

http://spaceweather.com/images2010/04dec10/darkfilament_strip.jpg

[avid]

http://www.spaceweather.com/
GREEN SNOW: Globally, Earth's magnetic field has been quiet this weekend, but in one corner of northern Canada the story was different. "Last night," reports
Francis Anderson, "the auroras here in Tuktoyaktuk of the Northwest Territories were so bright they cast shadows on the ground and [turned the snow green]!" The phenomenon is called a "substorm" and it gives reason for people of the North to keep an eye on the sky even when the global forecast calls for quiet--like now.

MAGNIFICENT FILAMENT: A dark magnetic filament more than 400,000 km long is snaking around the sun's southeastern limb. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory photographed it rotating into view during the early hours of Dec. 4th:



In this extreme ultraviolet image, blues and yellows trace million-degree gas in the sun's atmosphere. Dense plasma bottled up inside the filament is about ten times cooler, so it appears dark in contrast to the hot atmosphere around it.

The arrival of the filament comes as no surprise. NASA's STEREO-B spacecraft has been monitoring the filament for days as it approached the sun's horizon from behind. So far the massive structure has hovered quietly above the stellar surface, showing no signs of instability. How long can the quiet last? Long filaments like this one have been known to collapse with explosive results when they hit the stellar surface below. Stay tuned!