A giant sunspot is facing us right now

As if the heat across the world was not concerning enough, now a giant sunspot facing Earth has apparently doubled in size.

That’s right, in the past 24 hours, Active Region 3038 on the sun has been pretty, well, active.

The news comes as areas across the globe are experiencing unprecedented heat, with Iran recording one of the highest-ever temperatures.

There’s no need to full-on panic as per the lead for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Forecast Office, Robert Steenburgh, the sunspot’s growth is pretty standard. “This is what sunspots do. Over time, generally, they’ll grow. They go through stages, and then they decay,” he explained.

While that’s reassuring, some were concerned about solar flares. For anyone not sure of what a solar flare is, Steenburgh, “I guess the easiest way to put it is that sunspots are regions of magnetic activity. You can think of it like the twisting of rubber bands. If you have a couple of rubber bands twisting around on your finger, they eventually get twisted too much, and they break. The difference with magnetic fields is that they reconnect. And when they reconnect, it’s in that process that a flare is generated.” Giant sunspot facing Earth Giant sunspot facing Earth

Source: Agencies