A newly posted YouTube video offers viewers a chance to watch the 15-days worth of solar surface activities in just a little under eight minutes. The spectacular time-lapse video is courtesy of James Tyrwhitt-Drake, a student at the University of Victoria and research at the school's Advanced Microscopy Facility.
Tyrwhitt-Drake, who regularly posts science-related film and imagery to his YouTube channel and Tumblr blog, spliced together more than 17,000 images captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory to create the video.
Most significantly, the time-lapse vid features the historic AR 2191 sunspot, the biggest in more than two decades. Over the course of nearly two weeks, the massive region of electromagnetic activity produced produced six X-class and four M-class solar flares.
At one point during the peak of its activity, the sunspot shot off three X-flares in less than 48 hours.
Despite all the plasmic action, the sunspot -- which is now on the opposite side of the sun -- never boasted a coronal mass ejection, a massive geomagnetic storm that can disrupt power grids and down satellite communication.
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