M1.2 solar flare from sunspot region 2169

Thursday, 18 September 2014 15:15 UTC

M1.2 solar flare from sunspot region 2169

A bit of a surprise today on our nearest star: sunspot region 2169 produced an impulsive M1.2 (R1-minor radio blackout) solar flare that peaked at 08:41 UTC. An unexpected event from a very modest sunspot region. Header image and video: NASA SDO.

The solar flare was associated with an Type II radio burst produced by a shock trough the solar corona with an estimated velocity of 537 km/s. Coronagraph imagery from SOHO/LASCO do not show that there was a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) associated with this event. The GOES-15 satellite was eclipsed by Earth at the time of the flare which is the reason why there was not an automated alert for this event. 

ALERT: Type II Radio Emission
Begin Time: 2014 Sep 18 0842 UTC
Estimated Velocity: 537 km/s

Sunspot region 2169
Sunspot region 2169 is actually a very simple sunspot region and that is why this event came as a surprise. It is unlikely that this sunspot region could produce more solar flares of this magnitude. All the other sunspot regions on the disk are also unremarkable.

Any mentioned solar flare in this article has a scaling factor applied by the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), the reported solar flares are 42% smaller than for the science quality data. The scaling factor has been removed from our archived solar flare data to reflect the true physical units.

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Current data suggests there is a slight possibility for aurora to appear at the following high latitude regions in the near future

Gillam, MB, Whitehorse, YT, Yellowknife, NT
Fairbanks, AK, Utqiagvik, AK

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