Here are today’s solar images taken from Al Sadeem Observatory, April 11, 2018.

The sky was slightly hazy with moderate to fresh breeze making the seeing and transparency poor at the time these images were taken.

The area of pores spotted yesterday (refer to the previous post) did not develop and eventually decayed completely, leaving the Sun’s visible disk spotless at this moment. Generally, solar activity remains at very low levels with no significant flaring activity recorded over the past 24 hours. The latest sunspot number (based on visual count and Wolf number calculation) is 0.  Few tiny eruptive prominences, including the one at the western limb, were distinctively captured in H-alpha imagery.

Despite the absence of sunspots, the Sun released an Earth-directed fast solar wind stream from a huge equatorial coronal hole which could cause a minor geomagnetic storm. and brief radio and satellite communication disruptions in the next few days once it reaches and interacts with the Earth’s magnetic field. More information here.

Space weather agencies* forecast solar activity to remain at very low levels with chances of weak X-ray fluxes or flares ranging up to B-class intensity. Close monitoring is being conducted by numerous space weather agencies for any significant development.

*Technical reports courtesy of Solar Influence Data Center (SIDC), NOAA-Space Weather Prediction Center (NOAA-SWPC)