August 28th, Sleepy Sun...

The above X-ray image of the sun was taken August 26st at 11:48:00 UTC by the Solar X-ray Imager (SXI) aboard the GOES-15 satellite. Image Credit: NOAA

For the end of August 24th and most of the 25th, solar activity was low. Active Region 1554 (AR 1554) produced one C1-class solar flare on the 25th at 02:36 UTC. Adn no coronal mass ejections (CMEs) observed during this period were expected to affect Earth. A new region was numbered, AR 1555, which will be watched as it grows in intensity. Forecast through August 28th: The solar activity is expected to be very low with a chance of C-class flares.

At home, the geomagnetic activity levels ranged from quiet to unsettled. There were two periods of storms at high latitudes which ranged from active to major levels. And the solar wind velocity increased to around 600 km/s with the arrival of a coronal hole high-speed stream. Forecast through August 28th: The geomagnetic levels are expected to range from quiet to unsettled. There is a slight chance for storms at high latitudes in the active to major levels, due to the residual effects from the coronal hole high-speed stream. The activity is expected to decline to mostly quiet levels with a slight chance for storms at the high latitudes on the 27th. On the 28th, levels should range from quiet to unsettled with a chance for minor to major storms due to the arival of another negative polarity coronal hole. Stay tuned...

To monitor solar flare activity minute by minute, visit the "Today's Space Weather" page of NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (www.swpc.noaa.gov/today.html).

To learn more about the sun and to stay current on solar activity, visit the mission home pages of the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) (sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov), the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) (sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov), the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) (www.srl.caltech.edu/ACE), and the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) (stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov).

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