Quiet Sun, coronal hole facing Earth
Friday, 3 July 2015 00:13 UTC
The Earth-facing side of the Sun is quiet, especially if you compare it to the action that we had last week. While there have been some far side eruptions, there are no sunspot regions facing Earth right now which could be capable of producing an M-class solar flare. The most interesting solar feature on the disk right now is a coronal hole located on the Sun's southern hemisphere that is facing Earth right now.
Solar wind flowing from this coronal hole could arrive at Earth on Sunday (5 July) and cause a minor G1 geomagnetic storm providing the direction of the IMF (Bz) turns south. Solar wind speeds are expected to reach 600km/s. The image below which comes from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows us the coronal hole which you can identify as the dark area on the Sun's southern hemisphere.
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