From NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.

You heard about the big X4.9 solar flare at 00:50 GMT Monday I suspect. Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy is always the go to person on that, but NASA has a video out of the fare in different wavelengths that is pretty cool. The sunspot that produced the flare is rotating slowly around, and will be facing Earth in a few days. If it erupts again then we may be in the path of a geomagnetic storm.

Aurora watchers, there is hope!

By The Way..

I also recommend Phil Plaits post on the latest musings of the “climate change is a big hoax crowd”. When the 3% start calling the 97% of climate experts who get it “Nazis”, you know the end is near. (Studies have shown that the 3% have published little in the field by the way.) Dr. Greg Laden wrote something about climate science on his science blog and got the usual twitter crowd all charged up. He decided to make an image of all of their twitter avatars… it’s hilarious. It really shows that these folks think the science is wrong because it conflicts with their political worldview, while science and fact have nothing to do with it.

and the video: