06-07-09 Sunspot 1024 is putting on a spectacular show

What a difference 48 hours can make.Only two days ago the sun was blank and calm,displaying the sort of unrelenting quiet we've come to expect from the deepest solar minimum in a century.Then,with startling rapidity,sunspot 1024 burst onto the scene:Unlike other recent "sun-specks",this active region is a full-fledged sunspot group with more than a dozen planet-sized dark cores,crackling with B- and C-class solar flares.Sunspot 1024 is putting on a spectacular show," says amateur astronomer David Tyler of Buckinghamshire UK,who caught it in mid-flare on July 5th:"This is the best sunspot I've seen in two years," agrees Michael Buxton of Ocean Beach,California