NASA Sees Monster Sunspot Growing Fast, Solar Storms Possible

A colossal sunspot on the surface of the sun is large enough to swallow six Earths whole, and could trigger solar flares this week, NASA scientists say.

The giant sunspot was captured on camera by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory as it swelled to enormous proportions over the 48 hours spanning Tuesday and Wednesday (Feb. 19 and 20). SDO is one of several spacecraft that constantly monitor the sun's space weather environment.

"It has grown to over six Earth diameters across, but its full extent is hard to judge since the spot lies on a sphere, not a flat disk," wrote NASA spokeswoman Karen Fox, of the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., in an image description.

The sunspot region is actually a collection of dark blemishes on the surface of the sun that evolved rapidly over the last two days. Sunspots form from shifting magnetic fields at the sun's surface, and are actually cooler than their surrounding solar material.

According to Fox, some of the intense magnetic fields in the sunspot region are pointing in opposite directions, making it ripe for solar activity. Read more >>

Strong solar storms until 2014

Late last month, the sun let off another solar flare—and the particles associated with the storm were some of the fastest NASA has ever recorded, reaching speeds of up to 2,200 miles per second, or 7.92 million miles per hour. NASA scientist Phillip Chamberlin, with the solar physics laboratory, called the July 23 "coronal mass ejection," or CME, a "huge" event and said the storm also caused one of the largest magnetic fields ever measured. Luckily, the storm was "directed away from the Earth," so nothing terrestrial was likely affected.

Because it wasn't facing Earth, NASA scientists weren't able to determine the size of the flare that caused the particle ejection. CMEs are associated with large solar storms and are the charged particles that can knock satellites and power grids offline. According to NASA's "SCORE" system, which rates CMEs according to their speed, last month's event was "extremely rare." More common CMEs clock in at about 620 miles per second.

The sun has been extremely volatile this year, Chamberlin says, because the sun is likely entering the peak of its "solar cycle." Strong solar storms are expected to happen with increasing frequency until the beginning of 2014. Read more >>