AR 13163

[Philalethes]

Might as well make a topic for it in case it does something interesting, it's certainly the best candidate other than 3165. Transition gif here.

[MinYoongi]

Thank you for opening this topic ! 

It certainly looks good, can the middle mish.mash be considered a Delta?

[Philalethes]

4 minutes ago, MinYoongi said:

It certainly looks good, can the middle mish.mash be considered a Delta?

Seems like indications of one at least, but the umbrae are still a bit weak, and there's not really any penumbra behind the negative part of it.

Let's hope for some more mixing.

[MinYoongi]

34 minutes ago, Philalethes Bythos said:

Seems like indications of one at least, but the umbrae are still a bit weak, and there's not really any penumbra behind the negative part of it.

Let's hope for some more mixing.

Thank you, as always the gif is greatly appreciated.

The Region is currently lacking activity - but looking at 3165 which is perma-flaring and glowing like a radioactive glowstick  it doesnt look THAT complex, what makes it flare so much more?

[Philalethes]

5 hours ago, MinYoongi said:

Thank you, as always the gif is greatly appreciated.

You're welcome; you can also see an automatically updated version for yourself in the link I provided in the first post as well (if it stops playing when you zoom in in the drive you'll have to download it, I guess).

5 hours ago, MinYoongi said:

The Region is currently lacking activity - but looking at 3165 which is perma-flaring and glowing like a radioactive glowstick  it doesnt look THAT complex, what makes it flare so much more?

Well, that's where the amount of shear enters the picture. Essentially, instead of the field lines being oriented more side by side with each other in the adjacent areas, they are oriented more against each other (highly simplified, caveat lector).

I suppose one could try to make an analogy to water: imagine the negative areas as having water flowing into them and the positive areas as having water flowing out of them; in reality there's no such flow in either direction in the magnetic field itself, but as you can see from the loops these fields cause charged particles to move along them, essentially spiraling around the lines:

Here B represents the magnetic field lines, i.e. the lines moving from positive sunspots to negative sunspots, and you can see the charged particle spiraling along the lines, being essentially locked in place in any direction perpendicular to the field; this isn't as readily apparent when you watch imagery of the coronal loops, but the loops are essentially charged particles spiraling in this way around the lines as they move from one sunspot to the other.

So when talking about the "water" in this analogy flowing inward or outward it's primarily because it makes the charged particles spiral in the opposite directions to one another as they move along these lines; and the charged particles in turn produce magnetic fields, which is why all of them spiraling around the lines in the same direction tends to reinforce this same field, while having them spiral in opposite direction would cause the magnetic fields to clash and become turbulent (I'm simplifying as much as I can, and even my own knowledge here is extremely shaky, but magnetohydrodynamics is extremely complex).

So, returning to the water analogy despite how there are probably a thousand things wrong with it when investigated more thoroughly: consider using a hose to emit a powerful jet of water; field lines oriented neatly from one positive sunspot into an adjacent negative sunspot would be like that. Now consider instead that you and a friend are each holding a hose, and both of you are emitting a powerful jet of water towards each other: as you can probably imagine, this would cause a lot more turbulent flow where the jets cross, and the more you direct the jets directly into each other the more turbulence you'd get; if the jet is powerful enough you'd also start to experience a force pushing the jets away from one another, much like if you'd direct it directly into the ground or into a wall, and you have to use strength to hold them in place until your strength gives out and the jets align with one another.

The former scenario above is meant to be analogous to when there is little to no shear, i.e. where the field lines are neatly oriented from one spot to the other. The latter scenario is meant to be analogous to when there is a lot of shear, i.e. where the field lines instead of moving out of one spot and into the adjacent one are rather moving into and out of surrounding spots in a way that causes the field lines between them to be aligned in opposite directions, like two jets of water into each, rather than side by side like a single jet.

This is also why shear tends to decrease as flares occur, since this typically happens when the field lines spontaneously reorient themselves due to the shear, like you giving in when your strength fails and letting the jet of water reorient itself due to the force. That being said, the turbulence produced in such an event can definitely have unforeseen consequences if the surrounding conditions are right, like a domino effect (think the jet of water being pushed in a new direction where it suddenly is shearing against something else, producing another flare, like a mass collision), which is one reason to be hopeful about highly complex regions. And ultimately such complex regions and shear form in the first place when the underlying movement of the magnetic field makes it happen, so even though the field lines might reorient themselves and cause a decrease in shear as a flare occurs, more shear will often arise out of this underlying process; this is akin to the other analogy I've mentioned previously, i.e. to a collision whose degree of havoc will vary depending how big and fast the colliding objects are, as well as the direction they are moving in.

Again, a ton of oversimplifications there, and it's so complex that I'm definitely not going to pretend I fully understand it myself, but that's my best attempt at a simplified explanation. Others who have more in-depth knowledge of magnetohydrodynamics or electromagnetism in general are definitely free to chime in and provide better explanations or simplifications, and to point out errors.

Edited December 15, 2022 by Philalethes Bythos

[MinYoongi]

Thank you for the great explanation. it was alot to unpack but you described it in an appropriate way!

 

How does the region look to you? To me it looks like its loosing complexity / Spots fading.

[Philalethes]

26 minutes ago, MinYoongi said:

How does the region look to you? To me it looks like its loosing complexity / Spots fading.

It does look a little bit weaker, but who knows what might happen. Might full well just be another nothingburger.

[MinYoongi]

43 minutes ago, Philalethes Bythos said:

It does look a little bit weaker, but who knows what might happen. Might full well just be another nothingburger.

I dont know if it has a good delta or not, im not good with many-spot regions. 

[mozy]

3 minutes ago, MinYoongi said:

I dont know if it has a good delta or not, im not good with many-spot regions. 

Nah, the delta is barely even worth noting, so far it's just been kinda existing, no action really.

But it could change real quick as we've seen with regions ^^

[Philalethes]

Apparently one of the M-class flares from yesterday (M2.1) was produced by this region. Not much to report since then, but there's still some mixing and still a tiny indication of a delta.

Edited December 16, 2022 by Philalethes Bythos

[MinYoongi]

31 minutes ago, Philalethes Bythos said:

Apparently one of the M-class flares from yesterday (M2.1) was produced by this region. Not much to report since then, but there's still some mixing and still a tiny indication of a delta.

So its still a not good delta like @mozy said? Why is that, not big? No shear? 

 

I'm baffled at how 3165 can keep gattling gunning those flares out.

34 minutes ago, Philalethes Bythos said:

Apparently one of the M-class flares from yesterday (M2.1) was produced by this region. Not much to report since then, but there's still some mixing and still a tiny indication of a delta.

ah also, any indications of a CME launched with it?

[Philalethes]

2 minutes ago, MinYoongi said:

So its still a not good delta like @mozy said? Why is that, not big? No shear? 

If I read them correctly, I believe they said the delta wasn't particularly good; "barely even worth noting", to quote them verbatim. It's pretty much the same now, hardly worth nothing, only a tiny indication of one. As for shear that is hard to measure directly as far as I'm aware (if anyone knows and tools or data for this, I'd be all ears), but if it did give off a M2.1 there must probably be some shear in the region somewhere, possibly in that tiny delta-ish area.

4 minutes ago, MinYoongi said:

any indications of a CME launched with it?

Doesn't seem like it; most of the flaring has been quite impulsive, and that tends to not bring about any CMEs. There was talk in the other thread about a more sustained flare from 3165, but that one's almost at the limb now anyway.

[Vancanneyt Sander]

Just checked, the delta isn't much worth to talk about cuz it's tiny but to me it looks like the region might be able to produce another minor M-class flare. If it further develops, some more deltas could form as there is some extra mixing of polarities but not yet with spots.

In case you look for the delta, here it is:

[Sam Warfel]

I really want this region to kick off a CME while it’s Earth-fscing

[mozy]

Not looking good for future flares as of now, losing spots & the small delta is gone..

[Sam Warfel]

😭😭😭

[MinYoongi]

1 hour ago, mozy said:

Not looking good for future flares as of now, losing spots & the small delta is gone..

It doesnt even looks really intermixed anymore. This looks like a slightly spicy beta..

[Philalethes]

[MinYoongi]

Why does noaa still assign this region a 10% Chance for an X? Theres no polarity intermixing at all.

[Solarflaretracker200]

13 minutes ago, MinYoongi said:

Why does noaa still assign this region a 10% Chance for an X? Theres no polarity intermixing at all.

They are probably late or something

[MinYoongi]

10 minutes ago, Solarflaretracker200 said:

They are probably late or something

No, the synoptic map was drawn a few hours ago.

[Solarflaretracker200]

13 minutes ago, MinYoongi said:

No, the synoptic map was drawn a few hours ago.

Ah, then I don’t know. 

[hamateur 1953]

yes You are a disapp

On 12/16/2022 at 3:05 PM, Philalethes Bythos said:

ointment