Report for 3/9/12

Massive sunspot AR1429 has been very active this week, unleashing several intense solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). The sunspot released an X1-class solar flare and CME on Monday. It followed that up with an X5-class solar flare and CME on Wednesday, which was Earth-directed; the blast is the cause for today's geomagnetic storm activity.

AR1429 is currently more than seven times the width of Earth and is still growing! (As of Sunday, it was approximately four times Earth's width.) NOAA forecasters predict an 80% chance of M-class flares and 40% chance of X-class flares in the next 24 hours.
What do you predict? Submit your forecast today!

The Sun unleashed an X-class flare on Wednesday.