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Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics

November Solar Storms and Aurora

December 29, 2004

In 2003, the October solar storms obtained significant attention from the scientific community as well as from the press and public. These storms upset the Earth’s magnetic filed, and disrupted satellite communications worldwide. In 2004, the Sun again put on a fascinating show during the Halloween season with several large flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). During late October and early November 2004, there were 22 M-class flares and 3 X-class flares. Of these 25 large flares, the SORCE XPS instrument observed the peaks during 16 flares and observed the irradiance decay during all of the flares. The largest flares observed by XPS have increases in the 0.1-7 nm range by factors of 17 and 20 on November 7 and November 10, respectively.

To read more, see the December 2004 newsletter

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