Chance of X-class Flares - 17th November

Cloud may well have returned to the UK again, but the Sun is crackling with plenty of activity: Sunspot AR11897 has evolved into a sprawling archipelago of magnetic islands with more than a dozen dark cores scattered across 350,000 km of solar "terrain." This complex region has a 'beta-gamma-delta' magnetic field that harbors energy for X-class solar flares, and it is directly facing Earth. Any eruptions from AR11897 this weekend would likely be geoeffective. NOAA forecasters estimate a 60% chance of M-class solar flares and a 15% chance of X-flares.