Solar Activity Data And Near Real-Time Solar Images

The sun is the engine of the Earth’s weather. The role of the sun in influencing climate and the various mechanisms that may be involved is a matter of some debate. What is not in doubt is that the sun is going through a particularly quiet patch at the moment. This page gives a snapshot of some of the current data on the sun’s atmosphere, sunspots and magnetic field as well as sharing some fascinating images of the sun at various wavelengths.

Images below are near real-time and are from two instruments on NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft launched in 2010 which keeps a constant eye on the sun. At the foot of each image you can see the date and time that it was recorded (Universal Time (UT) is equivalent to GMT). The graphs below come from NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center. There are some notes on the data below the graphs.

Near Real Time Image Of The Sun As Seen Just Now By Instrument’s On NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Spacecraft…

This is the sun as it is about now. The image is in near real time from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Laboratory spacecraft with its Atmospheric Imaging Assemby (AIA) instrument. Courtesy: NASA, SDO.

 

 

 

 

Latest Data From NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center

Courtesy: NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center

Courtesy: NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center

Courtesy: NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center

Data Notes From NOAA’s SWPC

Update Schedule

The Solar Cycle products are updated once a month and are put on-line the first Tuesday after the new values are available. The latest values are usually available on the 3rd of every month.

Terms And Definitions

Observed numbers are simple averages of the daily values for the month.

SWO Sunspot Numbers are issued by the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) in Boulder Colorado, USA.

The official International Sunspot Number (RI) is issued by the Sunspot Index Data Center (SIDC) in Brussels, Belgium. Data and plots are available from the SIDC web site at http://sidc.oma.be

10.7cm Radio Flux is the preliminary observed value measured in Penticton, B.C. Canada. The values are displayed in solar flux units (1 sfu = 10^-22 W/m^2/Hz).

The Ap Geomagnetic Index is the preliminary estimate calculated by the United States Air Force (USAF).

For daily values, see http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpmenu/indices.html

Daily Solar Data — last 30 days

Daily Solar Data — current quarter

Solar, Particle, and Geomag. Indices beginning Jan. 1994

Smooth values are an average of 13 monthly observed values centered on the month of concern (the 1st and 13th months are given a weight of 0.5).

Ap(avg)=(0.5*Ap(1) +1.0*Ap(2) +1.0*Ap(3)+ … +1.0*Ap(12) +0.5*Ap(13))/12.0

SWPC products use preliminary values. Final values are available through the National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) at http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/ normally one to two months later.

The Sun In Near Real-Time As Seen By SDO’s AIA And HMI Instruments

Images below are near real-time and are from two instruments on NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) space craft launched in 2010 which keeps a constant eye on the sun. The Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) instrument looks at the solar corona at a variety of wavelengths and you can see those in those images below. The Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) is an instrument designed to study oscillations and the magnetic field at the solar surface, called the photosphere. HMI observes the full solar disk at 6173 Å with a resolution of 1 arcsecond. HMI and AIA are two of three instruments on the Solar Dynamics Observatory; together, the SDO’s suite of instruments observes the Sun nearly continuously and takes a terabyte of data a day.