Here comes the sun, da, da, da-da

Or, at the very least, here come some bits of it. Solar flare activity has been ramping up dramatically over the last fortnight, causing communication dropouts and other electro-magnetic problems all last week. This Monday, galactic time, our great

Or, at the very least, here come some bits of it. Solar flare activity has been ramping up dramatically over the last fortnight, causing communication dropouts and other electro-magnetic problems all last week. This Monday, galactic time, our great solar orb spewed out the biggest solar flare seen for 26 years, ejecting roughly a few billion tonnes of charged gas into space. The resulting solar storms are this time unlikely to cause too much disruption dirtside this time, however, due to the storm's trajectory into space and away from the Earth.

Sunspots, areas of distorted magnetic fields on the solar surface, cause coronal mass ejections - massive amounts of radiation and energised particles thrown into space. When the Earth passes through these ejections, we get the telltale disruptions in communications and some rather glorious auroras in the atmosphere. Such lightshows are usually confined to the northern hemisphere, but in the last week auroras have been visible as far south as New Zealand.

The sunspot causing the latest round of solar storms is about 13 times the size of our planet, and should reach the far side of the sun in a day or two, but observers have spotted another spot that will swing around from the sun's far side in a few days.
Space Weather Now