Sun's Storm Season Finally Heating Up
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft captured this eruption from March 19, 2011 as a prominence became unstable and blasted into space with a distinct twisting motion.
CREDIT: NASA/SDO/GSFC
After three years in a deep solar sleep of historic proportions, the sun is finally starting to wake up.
Sunspots — cooler regions fraught with intense magnetic fields — now regularly dot the surface of the sun, and the star has unleashed several powerful flares in recent months, including a Feb. 14 blast that was the most powerful outburst in more than four years. All signs suggest that the sun has shaken itself out of its slumber, researchers say.
"Finally, we are beginning to see some action," said Richard Fisher, head of the Heliophysics Division at NASA
headquarters in Washington, in a statement. [Amazing Sun Photos from Space]
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