August 30th, A C4 Flare? Yawn...

The above image was taken August 29th at 19:58:00 UTC by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA), at 94 Angstroms, aboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). This was the time of the C4-class solar flare produced by an undesignated region on the southeast limb. Image Credit: SDO/AIA

For the end of August 28th and most of the 29th, the solar activity was low. The largest solar flare of the period was a C4 flare, produced just around the southeast limb on August 29th at 19:58 UTC. A new region was designated, Active Region 1560 (AR 1560), and no Earth-directed coronal mass ejections (CMEs) were observed. The forecast through September 1st: The solar activity level is expected to range from very low to low, with a slight chance for moderate activity.

Back at Earth, the geomagnetic field has been quiet. The forecast through September 1st: The geomagnetic field is expected to be predominately quiet on the 30th. For August 31st and September 1st, the activity is expected to range from quiet to unsettled, with a slight chance for active conditions, due to the effects of a coronal hole high-speed stream. 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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