Largest Sunspot in over 20 Years

As captured by many who viewed yesterday’s partial eclipse, the sun is showing a massive sunspot region that is the largest one in more than 20 years. This region, known as AR2192, is about 80,000 miles in diameter, meaning that ten earths could lay across it. According to NASA, sunspots “point to relatively cooler areas on the sun with intense and complex magnetic fields poking out through the sun’s surface.” Large sunspot regions are often sources of increased solar activity, but no coronal mass ejections(CMEs) have accompanied any of the flares. CMEs can interfere with spacecraft and power systems here on Earth due to an aurora in our atmosphere. While this sunspot region is the largest since 1991, the largest on record was about three times the size of the current area, and occurred in 1947.