The sun is the most active than it has been in years – there are nine active regions on the sun today:

Here’s the annotated version:

Here’s a brief description of each active region:

AR numberDescription
2907Beta-Gamma-Delta (closeup: )
2908Beta
2909Alpha
2910Beta
2911Alpha
2912Alpha
2915Beta
2916Alpha (see below for an update as of Dec 29)
2917Beta

Here are the expanded descriptions of each type of active region:

  • Alpha: A unipolar sunspot group
  • Beta: a bipolar group with a simple division between polarities
  • Beta-Gamma-Delta: a complex bipolar grouping

Closeup view from spaceweatherlive.com

These are composite images created using the Slooh.com Canary 5 Solar Telescope.

Here’s an image of ARs 2907, 2908, and 2909 as they were emerging from the sun’s southeastern limb on December 15, 2021, taken using the MicroObservatory:

This is sunspot AR 2916 on December 29, 2021:

The preceding image was taken using the Slooh.com Canary 5 Solar telescope. AR 2916 has changed to a Beta region made up of 18 sunspots:

The preceding image of AR 2916 is from spaceweatherlive.com.