NASA has spotted an unusually large sunspot on the Sun, facing the Earth. Visible even to the naked eye, this is the largest sunspot on record in 20 years. If you catch tonight's eclipse (through a solar filter), you can look out for the spot, dubbed AR2192.
How massive is this sunspot? About as large as Jupiter, according to scientists at NASA. That is about 80,000 million miles in diameter. This is still smaller than the largest sunspot ever recorded, a huge one in 1947 that was three times larger than AR2192.
The sunspot has caused many solar flares, the largest of which so far was an X1.1 class solar flare on October 19. NASA added a dramatic video of the flare to its YouTube channel dedicated to the Sun. The last solar flare that large was in June.
The turbulence is caused by a disruption in magnetic energy that happens around sunspots, causing sunspots to be cooler than other parts of the Sun, giving them a dark appearance. The magnetic energy tends to be released in dramatic solar flares.
So far, however, the Sun has not emitted a coronal mass ejection (CME) from the region of the sunspot. CMEs are plasma flares from the Sun that, when large enough, can cause disruptions in certain services on Earth, such as electricity. CMEs can also affect spacecrafts.
Space weather forecasters will help to predict whether there will be a CME, to help prepare people on Earth for electrical disturbances if a CME occurs. Researchers said that while there is a risk of CMEs, it will most likely not be as bad as the Halloween storms of 2003.
"A typical sunspot region has a north and south pole but some are are more complex with polarity mixed together. [Sunspot region AR2192] has some of that mixed polarity, but this region isn't as scary as the region associated with the Halloween solar storm of 2003 which was more complex," said Doug Biesecker, who works at the National Weather Service Space Weather Prediction Center.
If you're curious about the chance of a CME, you can sign up for alerts at the NWS Space Weather Prediction Center.
