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.

Thank you for reading this article! Did you have any trouble with the technical terms used in this article? Our help section is the place to be where you can find in-depth articles, a FAQ and a list with common abbreviations. Still puzzled? Just post on our forum where we will help you the best we can! Never want to miss out on a space weather event or one of our news articles again? Subscribe to our mailing list, follow us on Twitter and Facebook and download the SpaceWeatherLive app for Android and iOS!

Latest news

Support SpaceWeatherLive.com!

A lot of people come to SpaceWeatherLive to follow the Sun's activity or if there is aurora to be seen, but with more traffic comes higher server costs. Consider a donation if you enjoy SpaceWeatherLive so we can keep the website online!

SpaceWeatherLive Pro
Support SpaceWeatherLive with our merchandise
Check out our merchandise

Latest alerts

Get instant alerts!

Space weather facts

Last X-flare2024/11/06X2.39
Last M-flare2024/11/25M1.9
Last geomagnetic storm2024/11/10Kp5+ (G1)
Spotless days
Last spotless day2022/06/08
Monthly mean Sunspot Number
October 2024166.4 +25
November 2024145.2 -21.2
Last 30 days156.1 +6.1

This day in history*

Solar flares
11997X3.69
21999X2.04
31999M4.06
42001M3.27
52012M2.32
DstG
11990-135G3
21957-122G2
32000-79G2
41978-66
52002-64G1
*since 1994

Social networks