Two large sunspot groups, NOAA 4478 and NOAA 4479, have been dominating the sunspot and flare activity during the previous week.
SIDC News
While NOAA 4479 is approaching the Sun's west limb merrily producing M-class flares, a new active region NOAA 4482 has rounded the Sun's southeast limb producing an X1.3 flare.
After several days of development, NOAA 4479 finally produced an X1 flare late on 30 June.
Solar Radio Bursts may significantly affect various technologies such as radars and GNSS applications. The STCE's SC25 Tracking page has now been supplemented with graphs of strong bursts (more than 5000 sfu) at 8 different frequencies for the period 1996-2025.
A dynamic nest of sunspot regions returned on 19 June and produced several M-class flares.
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Proba-3 mission is extended until August 2028. This space mission, involving a significant Belgian contribution, is studying the lower layers of the Sun’s corona.
The STCE's SC25 Tracking page has been updated to reflect the latest evolution of some critical space weather parameters for the ongoing solar cycle 25 (SC25).
After an anomaly onboard Proba-3's Coronagraph spacecraft led to loss of contact between the spacecraft and ground control last February, a tiger team worked relentlessly to get the spacecraft and its ASPIICS coronagraph back. Already in March they managed to re-establish contact with the coronagraph spacecraft.
NOAA 4455 produced 2 strong M-class flares and one X1 flare in less than 12 hours. The related coronal mass ejections are expected to hit the near-earth environment from late on 4 June through 5 June. There's a small chance for auroras over Belgium. ***UPDATED (1)***
The great geomagnetic storm of 4 February 1872 is renowned for its splendid aurora and crippling the telegraphic services worldwide, even at near-equatorial locations.
A large sunspot group which was flare active on the Sun's far side, had quieted down significantly when facing the Earth a week later.
Despite bad seeing conditions, the H-alpha solar telescope of the ROB/USET was able to observe the X-class flare of 24 April.