An inflight incident with an Airbus 320 on 30 October was most likely triggered by the impact of a high-energy particle resulting in an uncalled Single Event Upset ("bit flip"). The required soft- and/or hardware patch grounded 6000 aircraft.
SIDC News
NOAA 4299 produced an M8 flare late on 6 December. The associated coronal mass ejection (CME) is earth-directed and may cause a strong geomagnetic storm on 8-9 December. The X-class flare of 8 December had NOAA 4298 as its source.
A new data product reflects the progress that the LYRA team has made to discern the different instrumental degradation of quiet-Sun, active-region, and flare signals, and how to correct the data accordingly. The LYRA team wants to present this 15-year daily dataset to the solar community, in order to enable a comparison with various solar indicators, and to study the solar cycle.
Exactly 1 year ago, December 5, the duo satellite Proba-3 left Earth to head to space. The telescope ASPIICS, whose task is to make perfect total solar eclipses from space, was onboard. Now, 1 year later, ASPIICS has already delivered a wealth of amazing pictures of the solar atmosphere close to its surface, a treasure box for solar scientists.
SOHO was launched on 2 December 1995. Three decades later, it is still providing valuable space weather data.
A giant sunspot region has rounded the southeast solar limb and has been the source of several M-class flares. The X-class event early on 1 December was produced by a smaller region near the northeast limb. Further strong flares are expected in the coming days.
A fleet of solar satellites have imaged and measured the largest solar flare so far this year.
NOAA 4274 has now rounded the Sun's west limb. During the previous 2 weeks, eruptions from this active region significantly affected space weather conditions. This newsitem provides an overview of the events associated with the 5 X-class flares.
After 2 days of relative quiet, NOAA 4274 produced its fifth (!) X-class flare on 14 November. The associated CME is expected to deliver a glancing blow early on 16 November, resulting in -at most- a minor geomagnetic storm. As a result, no aurora are expected to be visible over Belgium. ***UPDATED***
A severe geomagnetic storm took place early on 12 November. Aurora were sighted over Belgium. The fast CME related to the X5 flare from 11 November arrived around 19:00 UTC on 12 November. Its magetic field was much weaker than that of the previous CME, resulting in only a strong geomagnetic storm which is still ongoing. Aurora over Belgium are no longer expected. ***UPDATED***
NOAA 4274 produced its 4th and -so far- strongest X-class event on 11 November. A series of CMEs may cause strong to severe geomagnetic conditions over the next 2 days. There's a small chance for aurora over Belgium.
Active region NOAA 4274 (SIDC Sunspot Group 687), the return of the flare-productive NOAA 4246, has just produced its THIRD X-class flare. ***UPDATED (3)***