Sunspot Sunset

Sunspot Sunset

Only a few days ago, sunspot AR2253 did not exist. Now the fast-growing active region is wider than the planet Jupiter. Yesterday, flying high above London, pilot Brian Whittaker photographed the behemoth sunspot as a blemish on the sunset:

"Clear skies over London, England, gave a great sunset with sunspots detectable," says Whittaker, who took the picture from the cockpit. "I checked the latest image of the sun from the Solar Dynamics Observatory on spaceweather.com, and found that the main 'blemish' corresponded perfectly to AR2253."
AR2253 has been mostly quiet since it first appeared at the end of 2014. However, this could be the calm before the storm. The rapidly growing sunspot has an unstable 'delta-class' magnetic field that harbors energy for powerful X-class solar flares. Any such eruption this weekend would be Earth-directed.

From SpaceWeather.com