NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please click here for solar observing safely.
A super image of the Sun taken on 24th March 2024 by member Honor Wheeler.
Honor captured the white light image of the Sun using an ED80 Refractor fitted with a solar filter, EQ3-pro Synscan mount, 2x Barlow, Canon M6 II. Exp1/6400s and ISO400.
Below Honor’s image is an image of the Sun on the same day with the sunspots labelled taken from Spaceweather.com.
Photo Ref: https://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=24&month=03&year=2024
Spaceweather.com reported ”Yesterday, the sun produced a solar flare so strong, it took two sunspots to make it. Sunspots AR3614 and AR3615 exploded in tandem on March 23rd (0130 UT), directing their fire straight at Earth. A National Solar Observatory telescope in Australia recorded the double blast.
The explosion from AR3614 (top) was so violent it seemed to rip the fabric of the sun, while AR3615 (bottom) followed very close behind with a less intense blast of its own.
While this may seem like an incredible coincidence, it probably didn’t happen by chance. Researchers have long known that widely-spaced sunspots can explode in tandem. They’re called “sympathetic solar flares.” Occasionally, magnetic loops in the sun’s corona fasten themselves to distant pairs of sunspots, allowing explosive instabilities to travel from one to the other. This has apparently happened to AR3614 and AR3615.
Some sympathetic flares are so much alike, they are considered to be twins. Yesterday’s double-blast was not a perfect twin, but close enough. It shows that the two sunspots are linked, raising the possibility of more double-flares…”
The NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the sequence and it can be viewed in this movie.