Something not seen very often: a bipolar sunspot region with both main portions having the same magnetic polarity.
SIDC News
The first Proba-3 ASPIICS Guest Investigator call is now open, with a submission deadline of 12 February 2026. The GI programme offers access to Proba-3 ASPIICS data and the unique chance to participate in instrument commanding.
Sunspot activity was quite variable during December 2025, with some large and complex sunspot regions at the beginning and end of the month.
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.
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***