See the activitiy from historic AR number 14000 by clicking the image above or click here for the youtube link.
Solar Trefoil: AR14000
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In February, 2025, the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) active region number reached 14000. NOAA started to assign a number to each sunspot that appeared on the visible side of solar disk since 5-Jan-1972 (see this article). The number 14000 means that this was the 14,000th sunspot since that date to appear on the solar disk. This region emerged in the Northeastern quadrant of the solar disk on 2/20, growing rapidly in size and was assigned the sunspot number of 14000 on 2/22. On the next day, AR 14000 evolved to a beta-gamma-delta type, because of its complicated magnetic configuration and produced 4 M-class flares during the passage to the West limb.
Not only by the assigned number and flare activity, AR 14000 is also impressive because of its beautiful shape: It looks like a three-leafed clover, doesn't it? It was the perfect time of year for showing off this shape, since we saw these green trefoils on the Sun coinciding with the celebration of St. Patrick's Day that came on 17 March. Let's say "Good job!" to AR 14000. Keywords: AR Tracking, Flare Filters: Al_Poly |
(Prepared by Aki Takeda)
The XRT instrument team is comprised of SAO, NASA, JAXA, and NAOJ.
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