Here's the aurora through conifer trees & sunspot complex 3664 that produced the solar storm. (Large dark area on the right limb of the sun). It's 17x larger than the Earth! Richard Carrington made a drawing of a similar spot in 1859 that produced a solar storm which lead to the Carrington Event. A Carrington Event today would severally damage satellites, power grids, & communications. In 1859, it caused fires in telegraph offices & the aurora was so bright people could read by it!
@ambivalena Oh no, it just happened that the Carrington sunspot in 1859 was of similar size and at nearly at the same latitude on the sun's surface as the sunspot last week. Sorry I wasn't clearer about that. I haven't seen anything official, and apparently last week's event hasn't been named yet, but I did see it suggested that last weekend's aurora were the strongest in 500 years! Also, that next year will mark the solar maximum in this cycle.
@elaterite Ok, it would have been awesome though if it could be verified that it was the same one ;-)
Ok, I heard it was the strongest since 2003 but I am not sure where I read that so I might be totally wrong about that.
So they have decided about the peak? I heard it has been some different oppinions about that too, some say it has already been and some that it will be 2025, which I hope for of course :D
@ambivalena I'm not sure. It was some guy on Youtube that said it was the strongest in 500 years. But now that I think about it, it couldn't be because it was said that the auroras cause by the Carrington event in 1859 were bright enough in the state of Kansas that people could read newspapers by them and that miners in California got up and started making breakfast because they thought the day was beginning. Last week's aurora was no where near that bright at mid-latitudes.
@amerpie Wow, thanks! Thought I'd post it for something a little different. I was trying to get to the water in a lake by walking down a long boat ramp that was closed. I had walked nearly a mile when it stopped at some construction equipment. Looking today on a satellite image, I still had a mile to go to get to the water! Anyway, I snapped the tree shot on my way back to the car.
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