Massive sunspot AR 1944 is getting feisty, and doing some damage.
Several Earth-lengths across, it is one of the largest sunspots seen in a decade. It is also complex, with dozens of dark cores.
"Sometimes you see a nice, big simple brown sunspot, and even though it's big, it's boring," said Alex Young of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "But as soon as they start getting twisted and breaking apart and merging with each other, you know something exciting is going to happen."
And something exciting has happened. Tuesday afternoon, AR 1944 was the source of a powerful X-class solar flare...