Check this out! I had read that there was a massive sunspot on the sun, the biggest since 1990. Well, after work I decided to slap on the solar filter onto my camera and have a look. Sure enough there is NOAA AR 13190 as it is known by stargazers. To give a sense of scale, that massive sunspot is about five times larger than planet Earth! Crazy.
Solar activity is currently increasing as we near the height of the current solar cycle and is expected to peak in 2025. AR 3190 is so large that if it were to erupt with a solar flare, it could be an X-class event, one that if it struck the Earth could destroy electronics, shut down power grids and have devastating effects.
As you can tell, the sunspot is about to rotate out of view and away from us. An important note… Do NOT look directly at the sun to try to see this event. If you have solar eclipse glasses, those would work to allow you to safely view it.
BTW, the title of this posting is a shoutout to one of my all time favorite singers, Bob Seger , and a song of his that I absolutely love. 😉
