M4.0 solar flare from sunspot region 2975
Monday, 28 March 2022 19:26 UTC
Our Sun is suddenly kicking things into a higher gear with numerous sunspots and active regions appearing appearing all over the solar disk. Sunspot regions 2975 and 2978 are by the far the most interesting regions right now and have both been the source of numerous C-class solar flares. Until late this morning that is. Sunspot region 2975 decided enough is enough and gave us a long duration M4.0 solar flare (R1-minor) that peaked at 11:29 UTC. This sunspot region is located right on the center of the earth-facing solar disk, great for an earth-directed coronal mass ejection!
Moments following the eruption we got confirmation of what we expected... both Type II and IV radio sweeps were reported and some nice coronal dimming (see first Tweet) was visible. LASCO imagery has also started to trickle in now and in all honesty, considering the look of the eruption, the resulting coronal mass ejection did disappoint us a little. We do see an asymmetrical full halo coronal mass ejection leaving the Sun but most of the ejecta is heading north-west. The full halo outline does however leave no room for doubt, this cloud of solar plasma has an earth-directed component. There are no official forecasts out yet but our preliminary analyses suggest an impact time early on Thursday, 31 March.
However, sunspot region 2975 remains a very potent threat due its complex magnetic layout. More M-class flare activity does seem likely within the next 24 hours and even an X-class solar flare is not totally out of the realm of possibilities.
Another look at the M4.06 solar flare of today, an Earth directed CME is very likely, but we still await LASCO imagery to analyse the CME distribution.
— SpaceWeatherLive (@_SpaceWeather_) March 28, 2022
More updates will follow, so keep an eye on https://t.co/6H0obRJNjc pic.twitter.com/xFAIlshcLE
Here is a look at the CME launched during today's M4.0 solar flare. While not as spectacular as we hoped for, we do see an asymmetrical full halo CME leaving the Sun. The plasma cloud is likely to arrive at Earth early on 31 March and cause minor geomagnetic storm conditions. pic.twitter.com/tr4WdPlElw
— SpaceWeatherLive (@_SpaceWeather_) March 28, 2022
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