Sunspot 978

After a quiet year, signs of more activity on the sun with the emergence of Sunspot 978.

From Space Weather news:

SUNSPOT ALERT: The sun is near the lowest ebb of the 11-year solar cycle and, until now, 2007 has been a year of very few sunspots.

Enter sunspot 978: It popped over the sun's eastern limb on Thursday and is quickly becoming a behemoth.

The rapidly growing sunspot group is more than five times wider than Earth, making it an easy target for properly-filtered backyard telescopes.

So far sunspot 978 poses little threat for strong solar flares, but this could change if the active region's development continues apace.

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