Solar Flare Updates For March 21st 2012

Solar Flare Updates For March 21st 2012
Farside Solar Flare Sunspot 1429 continues to be active while transiting the farside of the Sun. This morning (March 21, 2012), 1429 produced a solar flare which resulted in a bright Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). The movie below shows the flare as captured by STEREO Behind and also the CME Plasma cloud by STEREO Behind COR2. Because this was a farsided event, the expanding plasma cloud will not be Earth directed.

Updated 3/21/2012 @ 14:20 UTC

Solar Update A new sunspot is forming in the southern hemisphere and is now producing C-Class flares. This region should be numbered 1440 on Wednesday. Sunspots 1432 and new region 1439 rotated onto the western limb and 1434-1435 will soon follow. All other regions remain stable.

A bright Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) was seen early this morning blasting away off the farside of the Sun. STEREO Behind did capture a solar flare around old AR11429. This will have no impact on Earth.

GOES-15 Flips Out For anybody watching the GOES-15 Solar X-Ray Imager today (March 20), you may have noticed the satellite do a flip. The GOES Spacecraft will periodically do what is called a Yaw Flip Maneuver. It is a routine used to help provide better instrument cooling.