New Sunspot Unleashes M9.7 Solar Flare, To Face Earth Soon

A renamed sunspot is back, and it will soon face Earth. This might prompt strong solar activities that result in beautiful auroras.

New Sunspot Releases M9.3 Solar Flare

Keith Strong, a solar physicist, shared some details of the solar flare released by a new sunspot this week using the data captured by GOES X-Ray on X, formerly Twitter. He said it was "so near and yet so far." He noted that the new sunspot region on the SE limb had just produced an M9.7 flare, and since it was so far east, it was unlikely to affect Earth significantly.

The sunspot is identified as AR3723. However, we have encountered this hyperactive sunspot before. Sunspot AR3723 is the resurfacing form of sunspot AR3697, and before that, AR3664 caused the massive G5 geomagnetic storm that caused spectacular auroras worldwide.

Since the sun spins every 27 days on average, Earth can see an active zone for about two weeks before it passes over the western border of the sun. Due to the historical difficulty of tracking an active region around the back of the sun, newly forming active regions rotating onto the sun's eastern side are assigned a new active region number.

Sarah Housseal, an Operational Space Wx Forecaster and Meteorologist, shared a gif of the new sunspot on the same social media platform. According to her, the new region "pop up ahead of old AR3664/3697" is currently what we see. She noted that the old sunspot was still lurking behind the limb.

Dr. Tamitha Skov, a space weather physicist forecasting auroras, GPS, HF radio, and radiation, shared another GIF about the new sunspot. According to her, the old sunspot, AR 3697, is rotating into view in what she dubbed "The Gannon Region," named after Dr. Jen Gannon. The sunspot successfully passed from Solar Orbiter's EUI view (blue) and back into SDO's AIA view (red). She added that the sunspot would likely be given multiple designations as it has fragmented quite a bit. However, what's clear is that it has remained active.

Despite the sunspot region's reduced size, its magnetic composition still generates strong solar flares. As previously noted, on Sunday (June 23), it released a strong M9.3-class solar flare, which peaked at 9:01 a.m. EDT (1301 GMT). The outburst was on the verge of being categorized as an X-flare, the strongest solar flare.

Since this sunspot has produced 28 M-class flares and 6 X-class flares during its most recent rotation as AR3697, scientists will closely monitor it. As the sunspot region turns to face Earth in the next few days, those who hunt auroras hope for some intense solar activity that may result in beautiful northern lights.

Sunspot Region AR3664 Revisited

In May, AR3664, a colossal sunspot region, grew over 15 times bigger than the Earth's diameter. It grew to roughly 124, 300 miles (200,000 kilometers) wide. The huge and active sunspot ejected intense solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs), resulting in beautiful and colorful auroras or northern lights.

However, due to its massive size, it was comparable to the sunspot associated with the 1859 Carrington event—the strongest geomagnetic storm ever recorded on Earth. It was so intense that it brought networks of telegraphs down. When they handled the machinery, the telegraph operators claimed to have been shocked by electricity. Some disconnected equipment turned on due to a spontaneous fire in the telegraph paper.

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