Known as “active regions” 2993 and 2994 (AR2993 and AR2994), the new group of sunspots appears to be followed by a third group of sunspots that appears to have caused a strong solar flare to Earth a few days ago.
Reported Live ScienceWednesday (20/4/2022), this collection of sunspots covers an area of hundreds of millions of square miles, this means it is much larger than the diameter of the Earth.
They are caused by magnetic disturbances from the visible solar photosphere, which exposes the relatively cooler layer beneath.
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“I’m sure we’ll see [wilayah aktif] larger ones over the next few years,” said solar physicist Dean Pesnell of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Pesnell said the current cycle is expected to reach maximum activity in late 2024 or early 2025. Energy from the active region can be released as radiation (solar flares) and coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which are balls of superheated plasma.
Sun flare and such CMEs can create beautiful aurorae — but they can also pose a hazard to power grids, satellites, communications networks, and potentially even space explorers beyond the protection of Earth’s magnetic field.
Pesnell, who is project scientist for NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, said that the powerful X1.1 class flare detected on Sunday April 17, 2022 now appears to be emanating from a third group of sunspots rotating behind AR2993 and AR2994 to the disk visible from the Sun. .
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