Congratulations to the Stanford Team for their rapid repair of the JSOC!
The JSOC may be off-line, but SDO continues making observations and collecting data about our Sun during the maximum of Solar Cycle 25.
SDO continues doing all of the usual things of a satellite mission:
The JSOC is currently offline while the damage is assessed and repaired. The SDO data will be stored at the DDS in New Mexico until the repairs are complete and then will be automatically delivered to the JSOC.
This means that all HMI and AIA data from the JSOC will be unavailable until repairs are completed, the JSOC restarted, and the data delivery from the DDS re-established. Science data will be produced several days after that. Near-realtime data from before 26 Nov 2024 will continue to be available on the SDO wenbsite.
We appreciate your understanding, and are grateful for the dedication and responsiveness of the Stanford team.
Updates from the Stanford team will be posted at https://solarweb1.stanford.edu/JSOC_Emergency_Resources.html
But it has nothing to do with the Sun. The solstice is caused by the tilt of the Earth’s rotation axis to its orbit. On the other hand, we are in the maximum of Solar Cycle 25. Active region 13664 was an excellent example of how an active region should behave during a solar maximum. During the 16 days that AR 13664 was visible from the Earth in May, it produced 99 flares, including 12 X-class flares.
I produced a video of AR 13664 to celebrate the solstice. I downloaded three-color AIA images from the SDO website AIA and GOES XRS fluxes from the GOES website for days between 01 May 2024 and 16 May 2024. After removing the blank and offset images taken during an EVE cruciform, there were 1522 valid images in those 16 days (99% of the possible 15-min images). The XRS flux had 21616 points that were greater than zero.
Using the JythonMusic synthesizer, the XRS fluxes were converted to MIDI percussion sounds and then into a mp4 file. There’s a lot of different drums and cymbals in the soundtrack. XRS fluxes below a C-class flare were made into rests. When the video is quiet the Sun’s activity level is low.
The AIA images and audio file were combined to give the Solstice Celebration Video shown here.
The video starts with sporadic flares and some visible activity. Once AR 13664 starts generating flares the sound and images quickly start to resemble a fireworks finale! As AR 13664 rotates out of view the activity level drops, even though new active regions have appeared. You can also see a few non-solar things, such as the apparent rotation during a calibration roll maneuver. The flare sounds and flares in the images are not exactly in synch as the images are not frequent enough.
The solar fireworks were only the beginning. The largest geomagnetic storm in over 20 years took place on 11 May 2024. It's nice to see some geomagnetic activity after the storm-poor Solar Cycle 24. Large solar and geomagnetic activity makes it more difficult to track satellites in low-Earth orbit to keep them from colliding but that’s why we study the Sun.
AR 13664 was a fascinating feature of Solar Cycle 25!