Bearclaw Sunspot

Bearclaw Sunspot

Imagine a bear claw with toes the size of Earth. Yesterday, Philippe Tosi of Nîmes, France, looked through the eyepiece of his solar telescope and saw exactly that:

It's old sunspot AR2192, now making its second pass across the face of the sun. "I created this high resolution picture by combining six images," says Tosi. Click to view the full panorama.
Magnetic fields criss-crossing the toes and pad of this Ursidamorphic structure harbor energy for M- and X-class solar flares. However, the sunspot has been quiet for almost three days, so NOAA forecasters are estimating a relatively low 5% chance of X-flares on Nov. 20^th.

From SpaceWeather.com