Active region 1339 is a group of sunspots on the Sun that was discovered a week ago. A sunspot is a spot on the photosphere of the Sun. It appears as a dark spot because it is cooler than the surrounding surface. Cooler does not mean it is cold by no means. A sunspot can reach 4500 kelvin. The Sun reaches about 6000 kelvin.
We have not seen a sunspot region like this since 2005. You can actually see AR 1339 from Earth with the naked eye. That is not entirely true. One should never look directly at the Sun. There are safe ways to view the Sun, and if you intend to look for AR 1339 you should follow these suggestions.
AR 1339 is approximately 17 times the width of our planet. There are spots within the cluster that are larger than Earth. We see the Sun everyday and its enormity eludes most of us. You could fit 11,900 Earths inside of the Sun.
A sunspot is caused by intense magnetic activity. This magnetic activity cools certain areas on the sun and cause them to be dark. With intense magnetic activity there are the chances of coronal mass ejections (CME) and solar flares.
Below is a picture that was captured on November 3, 2011 by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. This is a close-up of the X class solar flare that erupted from the Sun at 3:27 p.m. ET.
This X class solar flare disrupted radio communications on Earth. Thankfully, it was not aimed directly at the Earth. This week AR 1339 will be aimed directly at us. This means that if a solar flare or a CME should erupt they would come straight at the Earth. Relax, the talk among astrophysicists and astronomers is if this should happen the most we will have is a great aurora show. The worst that could happen is it could wipe out some satellites and communication devices.
The Sun has an 11 year cycle. We are nearing the peak of this cycle. At the peak of a solar cycle solar activity is at its highest. The Earth is protected from solar activity by its magnetosphere.
In the past 7 days we have had 5 major CME that produced beautiful auroras or “Northern lights”. The light show is a result of electrically charged particles getting trapped inside Earth’s magnetic field. The majority of sun particles that get ejected are deflected by the Earth’s magnetosphere.
These are a few websites that I would like to share with you:
The website above is the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. You can view real-time images of the sun.
Space Weather (below) is a very informative site that gives you information on the Sun and weather in space.
There are 2 CME’s that are headed in our direction that are likely to create auroras on the 11th-12th. If you are in the northern hemisphere make sure you look for them! Please, if you witness these auroras I would love for you to comment and tell your story. If you take pictures, please send them to me and hopefully we can get those up on the website to share with everyone.
In closing, I would like to welcome everyone to Wormholeriders new science site. We are very excited about this project as it has been in the works for a few months. We have more features to add to the site. We have an impressive list of contributing writers for this site and we are honored to have them share their knowledge with our readers.
Thank you for reading and I hope to hear from you soon if you have any stories or pictures to share in the event we do get to see some auroras in the upcoming days.
