A gigantic sunspot has swelled to twice Earth’s size, doubling its diameter in 24 hours, and it’s pointed right at us.
The sunspot, called AR3038, grew to 2.5 times Earth’s size — making the sunspot roughly 19,800 miles, or 31,900 kilometers, in diameter — from Sunday (June 19) to Monday night (June 20), according to Spaceweather.com, a website that tracks news about solar flares, geomagnetic storms and other cosmic weather events.
Sunspots are dark patches on the sun’s surface where powerful magnetic fields, created by the flow of electric charges from the sun’s plasma, knot before suddenly snapping. The resulting release of energy launches bursts of radiation called solar flares and generates explosive jets of solar material called coronal mass ejections (CMEs).
Dispatches From The Front 