Today one year ago: X9.3 solar flare

Thursday, 6 September 2018 05:27 UTC

Today one year ago: X9.3 solar flare

It has been many months since we've last seen a strong solar flare or even a decent sunspot region. It is no secret that we are well on our way to solar minimum. However, today exactly one year ago, our Sun looked very different compared to how it looks today. Multiple sunspot regions were visible but by far the most interesting sunspot region was sunspot region 2673. Sunspot region 2673 was on 6 September 2017 one of the most complex sunspot regions that we have seen this solar cycle and it erupted that day with an X9.3 (R3-strong) solar flare which will likely remain the strongest solar flare of the current solar cycle, solar cycle 24.

A quick recap:

On 28 August 2017, Active Region 2673 rotated onto the earth-facing solar disk. At the time it was a simple Alpha region with only one sunspot. On 2 September 2017 it started to grow very rapidly and within 48 hours it became one of the most complex sunspot regions of Solar Cycle 24. Sunspot region 2673 was responsible for 27 M-class solar flares, 4 X-class solar flares and a severe G4 geomagnetic storm. It produced the two strongest solar flares of Solar Cycle 24: X8.2 and X9.3.

Last year we made a video about sunspot region 2673 and the impressive solar flares that it produced. We invite you to watch the video and take a trip down memory lane with us. Enjoy!

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!

100%
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-flare2024/11/10M4.2
Last geomagnetic storm2024/11/09Kp5 (G1)
Spotless days
Last spotless day2022/06/08
Monthly mean Sunspot Number
October 2024166.4 +25
November 2024186 +19.6
Last 30 days163.1 +14.2

This day in history*

Solar flares
12004X3.67
22013X1.62
32024M4.2
42002M3.47
52001M3.33
DstG
12004-263G4
21991-144
32000-95G2
41998-93
51975-67G2
*since 1994

Social networks