Solar Flare Update March 31st, 2015

Forty solar flares have been recorded since last Tuesday March 24th.  Nearly all of these have come from sunspot 2303.  Each solar flare was a C-Class flare.



Solar activity is expected to rise as 2302 and 2297 begin to face Earth once again.  Sunspot 2297 gave us around 67 solar flares, including a few X-Class flares only two weeks ago.

There is a coronal hole in the central region of the sun, dipping below the Sun's equator.  The coronal hole is releasing solar wind that is expected to come in contact with Earth on April 2nd to April 3rd.  Wind speeds were at 300 km/s and have now risen to 400 km/s.  Auroras are expected to increase in the next few days.


Nasa's Dawn spacecraft became the first mission to achieve orbit around a dwarf planet today March 31st at 4:39 AM UTC.  Dawn was captured by the orbit of Ceres at around 38,000 miles.