C7.4 solar flare

Monday, 7 December 2020 19:45 UTC

C7.4 solar flare

Solar activity has been fairly boring during the past few days but a surprise solar flare woke us up. A long duration C7.41 solar flare peaked today at 16:32 UTC. Sunspot region 2790 is to blame and that is a sunspot region facing Earth! Long duration solar flares are known to produce coronal mass ejections so the question is... was this an eruptive event?

The answer to that question is a huge yes! It became quickly apparent that this long duration solar flare would be eruptive. A huge amount of coronal dimming was observed which is an excellent  sign that a coronal mass ejection was launched during the event.

Indeed a large coronal mass ejection became visible on STEREO A. We do not have the earth-facing coronagraph imagery yet from SOHO but considering the location of sunspot region 2790 and the extend of the coronal mass ejection on STEREO A we think it is very likely that this coronal mass ejection has an earth-directed component. We will return with more news when the coronagraph imagery from SOHO becomes available.

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-flare2024/11/15M1.0
Last geomagnetic storm2024/11/10Kp5+ (G1)
Spotless days
Last spotless day2022/06/08
Monthly mean Sunspot Number
October 2024166.4 +25
November 2024161 -5.4
Last 30 days161.7 +14.5

This day in history*

Solar flares
12014M5.41
22014M4.73
31999M4.16
42002M3.49
52011M2.81
DstG
11960-142G4
21984-97G3
31981-69G1
41977-60G2
51978-57
*since 1994

Social networks