AR3038 is Doubling in Size Each Day

Although there is a chance that a sunspot pointed toward Earth might produce solar flares, researchers told USA TODAY that this is not at all rare and assuaged worries about how flares would impact the Blue Planet.According to Rob Steenburgh, interim director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Forecast Office, Active Region 3038, or AR3038, has been expanding over the previous week. According to him, the sunspot’s size and growing pace are typical.

He said, “This is what sunspots do.” “They will often develop over time. They go through stages before decomposing.” According to NASA, sunspots seem darker because they are colder than other areas of the sun’s surface. Strong magnetic fields that block heat from the sun from reaching the surface of the sun are where sunspots occur, which is why they are colder.

The simplest way to express it, according to Steenburgh, is that sunspots are areas of magnetic activity. According to NASA, solar flares are “a quick explosion of energy created by tangling, crossing or rearranging of magnetic field lines near sunspots,” and they mainly emanate from sunspots. Steenburgh stated, “You may think of it like the twisting of rubber bands. “

Rubber bands ultimately become excessively twisted and shatter if they are wrapped around your finger several times.Magnetic fields are different because they rejoin. And a flare is produced as a result of their reconnecting.” Solar flares are more likely to occur as sunspots get larger and more complex, according to Steenburgh.