PENUMBRAL LUNAR ECLIPSE: The Moon is about to pass through the outskirts of Earth's shadow, producing a penumbral lunar eclipse visible from North America and Hawaii. The best time to look is Monday morning, Nov. 30th, around 9:43 UT (1:43 am PST) when maximum immersion creates a subtle but clear gradient of light and shadow across the lunar disk. More: animation, visibility map.
MAJOR SOLAR FLARE: Earlier today (Nov. 29th at 1311UT), Earth-orbiting satellites detected the biggest solar flare in more than 3 years. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded this extreme-ultraviolet movie of the M4.4 category blast:
X-rays and UV radiation from the flare ionized the top of Earth's atmosphere, producing a shortwave radio blackout over the South Atlantic: map. Ham radio operators and mariners may have noticed strange propagation effects at frequencies below 20 MHz, with some transmissions below 10 MHz completely extinquished.
Remarkably, this flare was even bigger than it seems. The blast site is located just behind the sun's southeastern limb. As a result, the explosion was partially eclipsed by the body of the sun. It might have been an X-class event.
The flare also hurled a significant coronal mass ejection (CME) into space, shown here in a coronagraph image from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO):
This CME will not hit Earth. It is outside the strikezone for geoeffective solar storms. If, however, it were coming our way, we would be anticipating a strong geomagnetic storm. Maybe next time!
"Next time" could be just days away. The hidden sunspot that produced this major event will rotate onto the Earthside of the sun during the next day or two. Then its ability to spark geomagnetic storms will be greatly increased. Instant solar flare alerts: SMS Text.
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SUNSPOTS IN THE CLOUDS: For most of the past three years, the solar disk has been featureless, utterly blank and without spots. However, that's not what James W. Young saw yesterday when he looked through clouds over Seaside, Oregon:
"Thinning clouds acted as a natural filter," he says, "so I was able to photograph the sun using my Canon 1Dx Mark II digital camera set at ISO 200 (1/350 second exposure). The sunspots were clearly seen."
Seeing sunspots in the clouds is a sign that Solar Cycle 25 is gaining strength. The sun is now regularly producing 'spots as wide as Earth, and the biggest sunspot in Young's photo (AR2786) is about the size of Neptune. Forecasters expect Solar Cycle 25 to peak in 2025, so this is just the beginning. Stay tuned. Instant flare alerts: SMS Text.
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