Powerful Solar Flare Disrupts Communications in Asia and Australia

December Begins with a Major Geomagnetic Storm

The start of December was marked by a powerful solar flare, which caused radio communication disruptions across Australia and parts of Southeast Asia.
The flare, which peaked around 17:49 Kyiv time on November 30, originated in active region AR429 — a group of sunspots that had just become visible near the northeastern limb of the Sun. During its peak, this event caused strong radio blackouts (R3 level) on the sunlit side of Earth.

Observations from the SOHO space observatory captured a coronal mass ejection (CME) — a cloud of plasma and magnetic fields — from the same edge of the solar disk. According to calculations, this ejection was not directed toward our planet, writes Space.com.

However, the true object of interest is the giant active region AR4294, located behind the site of the flare. This magnetically complex and large cluster of sunspots is now rotating toward Earth. The region is so large and inhomogeneous that experts at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have divided it into three numbered groups. It was this very region that was the source of several powerful X-class flares in November — and it has grown even larger since then.

Space weather experts at NOAA forecast a high probability of M-class flares and a slight chance of new X-class flares through December 3. Although no Earth-directed ejections have been recorded yet, the increasing activity of AR4294 could change the situation in the coming days. The geomagnetic environment is expected to remain mostly quiet until December 3, when a stream of charged particles from a coronal hole with negative polarity could cause a minor (G1 level) geomagnetic storm.

“In simple terms, a ‘black swan’ has formed on the Sun. The scenario that it will pass across the disk grandly and silently in its current size, as it appears now, and the scenario of a series of the largest X10-X20 level flares in decades are equally probable and equally unpredictable in this situation. All that remains is to watch,” noted scientists.