GONG operations during U.S. government shutdown

During U.S. government shutdown, GONG will continue regular operations. The data will be provided both for the operational space weather forecast to SWPC/NOAA, and to the research community via NISP Data Center. Currently, four GONG stations are in operations with GONG/Udaipur station is down for a monsoon season, and GONG/Mauna Loa - in aftermath of the volcanic eruption (see blog post about ML road access). For a real-time information about GONG stations, see https://monitor.nso.edu/

GONG data processing update

Processing of the network-merged daily velocity and magnetogram images, p-mode-coefficient time series, and ring-diagram analysis products for GONG month 306, and the p-mode frequency data products for central GONG month 305 is completed and the data products are now available.

next-generation Ground-based Solar Observing Network

NSO has issued a press release announcing receiving funding from NSF to Design the Next-Generation Solar Observing Network to Advance Solar Science and Space Weather Forecasting.

The U.S. National Science Foundation National Solar Observatory (NSF NSO) will receive $19 million for design work for the Next-Generation Ground-based Solar Observing Network (ngGONG), a state-of-the-art solar observing network that will provide multi-decade, 24/7 monitoring and observing of the Sun.

ngGONG will be capable to:

• Provide continuous measurements of the Sun to study the processes driving solar activity from the Sun’s interior through the heliosphere, improving our understanding of solar structure and space weather.
• Deliver critical quantitative context for high-resolution solar and in-situ measurements, as well as advanced modeling efforts.
• Bridge solar and stellar research, shedding light on the impacts of stellar activity on planetary habitability both in our solar system and beyond.
• Serve as a platform for instrument innovation and long-term scientific discovery, creating a multi-decade record of solar variability for future generations of researchers.

The official award is now listed at NSF.gov. 

 

AGU calls for nominations of impactful datasets

Recently,  the American Geophysical Union (AGU) called for nominations of impactful datasets. It is highlighting and celebrating datasets that support the broad spectrum of research, analysis, and decision making by Earth and space sciences communities. AGU is looking for the impacts in three dimensions: people, planet, and prosperity. Nominations are due October 10th!For complete details and to submit your nomination see http://lite.spr.ly/6009zklz. 

 

 

 

 

 

New Ceph cluster for NISP data storage

Work has started on replacing the current NISP Isilon cluster by a new Ceph cluster for data storage. Last week, the base hardware for a "sandbox" (test) cluster was successfully installed and tested (see figure on the right).  The testing will continue as the main cluster is built. The plan is to complete the transition to the new cluster by the end of FY2026. The new cluster will increase the storage space available for NISP observations by approximately 50%, which include GONG, SOLIS, and legacy observations from various NSO and non-NSO instruments.

Update on the GONG/TD LCVR temperature control issue

This is an update on the note about GONG/Teide (TD) site (Canary Islands, Spain) LCVR temperature control issue, posted back in July. Once the LCVR temperature controller was disabled on June 24th, the TD-EVT data has been stable. Science tests of the TD Doppler velocity and magnetic field images before and after the LCVR temperature control was turned off did not uncover any significant problems with the data. The GONG/TD-EVT images have been accepted for downstream processing.

GONG refurbishment project update

NISP Data Center, scientists, and engineers completed vetting tenth GONG EVT (Emergent Vision Technologies) camera in frame of the GONG refurbishment project. This camera will upgrade one of the engineering sites in Boulder.  

Recurrent geomagnetic storms

Recurrent geomagnetic storms are associated with large coronal holes (CH). As Sun rotates, the same area of open magnetic field is brought up to face Earth every about 26 days. A large CH that was observed crossing solar central meridian early this week existed for several solar rotations. Upper row of images show solar corona observed by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) on 19 June, 15 August, and 11 September 2025. A large CH is seeing near central meridian on these days. In all cases, about four days later, there were moderate geomagnetic storms associated with this CH. Lower panel shows Kp (ap) index from the International Service of Geomagnetic Indices (ISGI)  database. It appears that a geomagnetic storm associated with this CH is now in development. 

GONG supports Parker Solar Probe's 25th encounter

Parker Solar Probe is approaching its 25th encounter, with perihelion expected on September 15 at 20:22 UT. The magnetic connectivity prediction issued on 12 Sep 2025 includes modeling predictions based on GONG magnetic field observations. For image on the right - Helioprojective PSP predicted footpoints: one footpoint per day plotted on the solar disk. Colored dots show predictions from a range of models. Gold squares show the consensus value for each day. Black contours show the full width half maximum for the Kent distribution (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_distribution) fitted to each set of footpoints (Courtesy of Sam Badman). This is the first of seven updates (for future updates see here).

UPDATED: Large coronal hole is crossing solar central meridian - when we will see a geomagnetic storm?

 A large coronal hole that was described earlier  is now crossing solar central meridian. High-speed solar wind streams (HSSs) originating in coronal holes may have velocities as high as 800 km/s, and reach Earth in about 2 days. Disturbance storm time (Dst) index is used to measure the impact of solar activity on Earth environment. A moderate geomagnetic storm has Dst index between -50 nT and -100 nT. Dst can be predicted from the magnetic field (polarity) associated with the coronal hole and the velocity of HSS. The later could be estimated from area of CH. Using this approach (see Nitti et al, 2023, doi: 10.1093/mnras/stac3533) one could expect to see a moderate-strength geomagnetic storm associated with this CH in about 2-3 days. Negative polarity magnetic field associated with this CH measured by GONG suggests stronger geomagnetic storm as compared with positive polarity field. Let's wait and see ... 

UPDATED on 14 Sep 2025: 

The Wang-Sheeley-Arge (WSA) model of solar wind predicts Earth entering HSS originating from this CH on about 14 Sep 2025, and reaching its middle point on 16 Sept 2025.  A snap-shot of  NOAA's WSA–Enlil model on the right shows predicted plasma density (top) and radial velocity (bottom) across the inner solar system. The sun is at the center (yellow), Earth is green, and STEREO A is red. As an input parameter, WSA-Enlil uses GONG magnetograms. Image credit: NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center.

It seems, the geomagnetic storms associated with this CH is now in development.  

Chromospheric H-alpha surge as observed by GONG

On 9 September 2025, GONG/Learmonth station captured H-alpha  surge (H-alpha jet) in a close proximity to the main sunspot of active region 14207. H-alpha jets appear as eruptions along narrow collimated path. The surges are accompanied by micro-flares at its base, followed by the eruption of a dark material. Some surges show rotational motions. The surges are modeled as a reconnection events between the opened magnetic fields and closed magnetic fields of emerging regions (see below for magnetic field configuration by Yuandeng Shen (2021, doi: 10.1098/rspa.2020.0217)).  Small-scale solar jets play an important role in supplying material and energy to the solar wind. Larger jet may contribute to space weather.

 

 

Large coronal hole and future space weather event?

Solar magnetic fields usually come in pairs: active regions have two opposite polarities, similar to bar magnets. One can identify some of these bipolar structures in a solar magnetogram from GONG on the right with positive/negative polarity fields shown as white/black halftones. Sometimes, the patterns are more complex with multiple positive and negative polarities.  Magnetic flux in these twin or multi-polarity regions is usually well-balanced: magnetic field lines originating in one polarity connect to the opposite polarity in the same active region or its surroundings. Corona is bright above closed magnetic field areas (active regions, see SDO/AIA image on far right). There are, however, areas which have predominantly single polarity magnetic field. Magnetic field lines originating in these unipolar areas may not connect to the solar surface, but extend to the interplanetary space. These areas of opened magnetic field coincide with coronal holes, areas were the corona appears much darker. One of these large coronal holes is now crossing solar visible disk. Coronal holes are associated with streams of fast solar wind, which cause moderate geomagnetic storms. We should expect a moderate geomagnetic storm activity in several days after the corona hole passes solar central meridian. 

Rare "double-decker" filament eruption

Traditional model represents the chromospheric filaments as dense, cold (relative to its surroundings) material seating in the lower part of horizontal magnetic flux tubes. In this model, the magnetic forces support the filament material against gravity, keeping it from falling down to the solar surface. The model explains many properties of filaments including their relation with the coronal mass ejections. However, the magnetic flux tube is continuous structure, and when the filament erupts, it is expected that the entire flux tube erupts with it. There are, however, instances when only a portion of filament material erupts leaving other part intact. Such filament splitting was explained in the framework of so-called double-decker filaments, when the magnetic reconnection results in splitting of magnetic flux tube into two separate tubes. A filament eruption on 6 September 2025 at 14:51 UT observed by GONG at Cerro Tololo, Chile  captured the filament splitting into two separate filaments. There are some small flare-like brightennings, but no X-ray class flare.  Also, no CME was associated with this event, and so, this is a failed filament eruption. These observations provide a strong support for the double-decker filament model. See for yourself.

What is a double-decker filament?

It refers to two separate filaments situated above the same polarity inversion line. Rui Liu et al (2012, doi:10.1088/0004-637X/756/1/59) proposed two magnetic configuration of a double-decker filament: (a) the upper and lower branches are flux ropes, (b) the upper branch is the flux rope and the lower one is the sheared arcade. Such configuration allows the eruption of one of the filaments, without impacting the other filament.  The filament eruption could be triggered by a loss of equilibrium due to flux imbalance, the torus or kink instabilities. Sunspot rotation was observed prior to some double-decker filament eruptions. More recent studies (e.g., Dongxu Liu et al 2025, doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/addfca) provide support to torus instability as a trigger for the filament eruption.

UPDATED: New data product in development: GONG H-Alpha Integral Carrington synoptic maps

NISP group is seeking feedback on a new data product currently in development: GONG H-Alpha integral Carrington synoptic maps. We are especially interested in suggestions regarding the appropriate set of keywords to include in the FITS file headers, as well as comments on the current map format.

At present, the maps are provided in Carrington sin(latitude)–longitude coordinates, with a resolution of 360 × 720 pixels. Observations from selected GONG sites are corrected for limb darkening and uniformly scaled in intensity before being merged into the final synoptic map.

A selection of FITS files is available at the following link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1M0ZwpBA_SW8JuMwlDP0Se75M2IQkCGQ3?usp=sharing

Please email your comments to nispdata@nso.edu by 15 October 2025.

C-class two-ribbon flare with filament eruption

 

On 4 September 2025 at 19:10 UT, C3.4 class flare erupted from NOAA active region 14206. The flare was captured by GONG station at Cerro Tololo, Chile. A portion of an active region filament situated near the main sunspot of this region starts slowly rising about 30 minutes before the eruption. After the eruption,  dark filament material can be seen in a low part of image as material is leaving the Sun. After the filament erupts, two bright ribbons develop, moving apart from the past filament location. This is a classical two-ribbon flare, which is usually accompanied by a coronal mass ejection (CME). The eruption took place near the solar central meridian, and if it was a CME, it would likely be Earth-directed. In this movie  created with different image scaling, one can briefly see a dark circular front centered at the eruption site (see image below). This is a signature of the Moreton (blast) wave, which maybe another indication of CME.  Unfortunately, LASCO C3 coronagraph has about 4 hour gap in observations between 16:54 UT and 21:06 UT, and thus, similar to previous event, it is not clear if it was a CME or not.

 

 

 

Blast from the past

 In August 1972, a series of solar flares and associated geomagnetic storms led to widespread communications disturbances and power outages. On August 4th, the geomagnetic storm caused a nearly instantaneous detonation of dozens of sea mines installed by the US during the Vietnam War south of Hai Phong. The August 4th flare, which occurred between the Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 missions, led to a significant increase in the radiation level in the interplanetary space. It was estimated that for the astronauts on the moonwalk, the radiation dose equivalents would have been clinically significant, including nausea, vomiting, a very high probability of cataract formation, with a slight increase in the probability of death. This flare, which occurred more than 50 years ago, was well-observed by the H-alpha flare patrol telescope at the National Solar Observatory at Sacramento Peak. Image on the left shows the Sun before the flare, and on the right is the flare in progress. You can also see that a portion of filament left of the flaring region had disappeared. These are the signs of a coronal mass ejection erupting from this area of the Sun. Study of the past events may bring invaluable information  about how such strong eruptions develop and help us to prepare for traveling to the Moon and Mars.

GONG Big Bear station

Broadband image from GONG/BB

GONG Big Bear station is exhibiting an unusually large number of camera resets. Each reset interrupts normal observing sequence, and impact the continuity of observations. This happen after recent unplanned power outage.  Engineering team is developing a mitigation approach to resolve the issue.

Flares, filament eruptions, but no CME?

Major (M- and X-class) flares and filament eruptions are usually accompany CMEs, but not always. On 31 August 2025 at about 14:00 UT, M1.3-class flare was recorded in NOAA active regions 14197. This is the region that had about hundred sunspots early this week. The flare activated large quiescent filament south of this region with a partial filament eruption at about 16:15 UT  (upper panel). Then, at about 18:00 UT a small two-ribbon flare and filament eruption were observed in NOAA region 14202 to the East of region 14197 (second panel from the top). See GONG video of these events at the bottom panel.  Despite this activity, there was no obvious sign of CMEs in LASCO coronagraph. There is gap in observations in LASCO C2 between 17:24 UT and 18:36 UT, and coronal streamers appear to be pushed apart during this gap. So, maybe it was a CME but LASCO missed it? Or maybe these were the  failed filament eruptions? 

Sunspot group with hundred sunspots

 Sunspots are organized in groups (or active regions). On average, active regions have only about 6-8 sunspots, but sometimes there are groups with much more sunspots. Sunspot drawing from the National Solar Observatory at Sacramento Peak Observatory taken 2 Sep. 1959 shows two groups with 81 and 93 sunspots. Early this week, an active region with about hundred sunspots was observed by GONG (see colored image showing a zoomed-in portion of solar broaband image of the Sun taken by GONG/Big Bear station in California. GONG telescopes have relatively small aperture, and thus, some small sunspots may not be visible. Observations with larger aperture telescopes suggest that there were close to 100 sunspots in this active region. 

C-class flare as observed by GONG/LE

On 26 August 2025, GONG at Learmonth (Australia) caught C6.2 flare in active region 14199 near solar East limb. Only a small eruption associated with this flare could be seeing in LASCO C2 coronagraph at about 1:26 UT. Video of this flare created by Niles Oien is available in GONG gallery.

Adverse Weather Conditions Interrupt GONG’s Continuous Observations

 Recent adverse weather conditions at multiple GONG sites have significantly disrupted observations, resulting in a markedly low duty cycle. Consequently, the seismic far side maps exhibit elevated noise levels.

GONG refurbishment project update

NISP Data Center, scientists, and engineers started vetting next EVT (Emergent Vision Technologies) camera installed at one of the GONG engineering sites in Boulder. This camera is one of the two that still need to be tested. Both cameras will upgrade the engineering sites. Five of the EVT cameras have already replaced old SMD (Silicon Mountain Design company) cameras at five sites of the GONG network.

Huge prominence eruption

 A huge prominence erupts from South-East limb in early hours of August 20, 2025. Day earlier, this region produced a major M-class flare. Such large prominence eruptions could be associated with a major geomagnetic storms impacting Earth's global infrastructure and satellites. This time, however, no geomagnetic storm is expected as the coronal mass ejection associated with this prominence eruption would miss the Earth. These observations are taken by GONG station at Learmonth, Australia. Erupting prominences (filaments on the disk) are closely associated with the coronal mass ejections - the major source of space weather.

Solar tornado

Solar prominence - a large dense plasma "cloud" suspended by the magnetic field in the chromosphere and corona is one of the hallmarks of active sun. Erupting prominence may become the coronal mass ejections, the prime sources of the geomagnetic storms and space weather.  Observations taken by GONG station at Learmonth, Australia on 18 August 2025 show dramatic evolution of a prominence on solar North-East limb with a rotating material forming solar tornado. Can you see a cloud funnel extending from the lower part of the prominence down to the chromosphere (thin bright layer above visible solar surface, the photosphere)? When it touches down it becomes a tornado.
 

From "solar maximum" to "minimum" in one week

The number of sunspots changes with about 11 year cycles, and Sun is on the declining phase of its cycle 25. However, the solar activity may vary significantly even on a shorter time scales. Nine days ago (8 Aug. 2025, left) there were number of sunspots located mostly in the Northern hemisphere (upper part of the solar disk). This level of activity is typical for a solar maximum. However, today (17 August, 2025, right) there are only very few small pores situated mostly in the Southern hemisphere. Such low sunspot activity is more typical for the period of solar minimum. Why does it matter? The ultraviolet (UV) flux, which strongly correlates with sunspot activity, heats the Earth atmosphere. More sunspots mean the Earth’s atmosphere expands to higher altitudes, where it creates additional drug for low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites. Such swings in number of sunspots may result in more LEO satellites being prematurely lost due to space weather. 

GONG H-alpha data transfer incident resolved

Saturday morning (16 Aug), one of NISP web servers stopped, and it did not auto-recover on-time. This delayed the transfer of H-alpha data between NISP to NOAA/SWPC data centers. The team was informed about the issue, and worked remotely on resolving it. As of 10:40 am (local time) the issue was resolved, and the flow of data to NOAA/SWPC was restored. GONG magnetogram data transfer were not impacted by this incident. 

GONG data processing update

Processing of the network-merged daily velocity and magnetogram images, p-mode-coefficient time series, and ring-diagram analysis products for GONG month 305, and the p-mode frequency data products for central GONG month 304 is completed and the data products are now available. 

Formation of an active region

 

See formation of an active region as observed by GONG (video created by Niles Oien) - https://gong2.nso.edu/products/misc/devGallery/viewSingleEvent.php?eventDir=event_20250802

 

GONG/BB - Power Outage

 A notification was posted on the BVES website regarding the outage:

 

Southern California Edison (SCE)- Restoration and Continued Public Safety Power Shutoff Warning August 4, 2025

Bear Valley Electric Service (BVES) is notifying customers that Southern California Edison (SCE) has restored power from the Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) affecting BVES supply lines. Power restoration typically takes 8 hours. Southern California Edison (SCE) has placed one of the supply lines on standby for re-energization due to a nearby fire.

Additional period of concern begins August 5th, at 12:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m. If SCE de-energizes this line, BVES customers will not experience an outage due to redundancy in the transmission lines. However, this condition does create the potential for large scale outages should one of the other transmission lines experience an outage during the PSPS event.

This precaution is mainly due to high winds and aims to reduce wildfire risk. Power restoration typically takes 8 hours and will start after the wind subsides. Delays may occur if daylight is required for safe inspections.

Bear Valley Electric Service (BVES) is reaching out to customers who may be impacted if Southern California Edison (SCE) implements a Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS). Updates will be provided through Facebook, voice and text messages, www.bvesinc.com, and local media.

As a reminder, the State of California allows electric utilities like SCE to proactively shut off power in high-risk areas during extreme weather conditions to reduce wildfire risk and ensure the safety of customers, their families, and property.

 

Also of note is the developing Gold Fire that is located north of Big Bear in the Holcomb Valley. 

 

 

 

Cycle 25 progression as observed by GONG magnetographs

 Time vs. solar latitude diagram of the radial component of solar magnetic field for 2006-2025. Each column represents one solar rotation (Carrington map). Blue/red show negative/positive polarity fields scaled between ±5 Gauss. Mid-latitude ( ±30 degrees) patters in both hemispheres correspond to the solar active regions. As solar cycle progresses, the latitude of active region formation drifts from higher to lower latitudes. Originating from these active region belts are diffused patterns drifting towards the solar poles. These are the remnants of trailing polarity fields of active regions, so called poleward surges, which gradually cancel out the polar fields of previous cycle and build-up new polar field of next solar cycle. In active regions, the leading polarity field is typically stronger, and it is more compact in comparison with the following polarity field. Also, the sign of the leading polarity fields in active regions is the  hemisphere and cycle dependent (so called, Hale polarity rule). This explains the sign-asymmetry in active region belts on this map: in cycle 24, the mid-latitude belt in the northern hemisphere appears mostly positive, while in the southern hemisphere, it is mostly negative. This polarity sign-preference reverses for cycle 25 with the mid-latitude belt in the northern/southern hemisphere appearing mostly negative/positive. The active region belts represent the 11-year (sunspot) cycle, which when combined with the sign-reversal of leading polarities of active regions in consecutive cycles (the Hale polarity rule) and the polar field evolution forms a 22-year magnetic cycle of the Sun. Data are acquired by GONG instruments operated by NISP/NSO/AURA/NSF.

Global helioseismology products by Dr. Sylvain Korzennik

Dr. Sylvain Korzennik (Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian) has completed the fitting of more HMI and GONG data, using time series of various lengths, up to for GONG: 2025.04.04 (GONG month #304), and for HMI: 2025.04.23 (MDI mission day #11800). He also fitted all the MDI data, or 76 x 72 days (14.98 yr) and the corresponding GONG time interval (1996.05.01 to 2011.04.25). 
 

The tables are available at his website and have been ingested into the JSOC.
 

He has started fitting all the GONG data as one 30 year long time series (152 x 72 days). Note that this time series starts on GONG month 1 or 1995.05.07 (vs MDI's 15 years that starts on MDI mission day no 1216, or 1996.05.01). 

Next, he plans fitting a 15 year long GONG time-series offset by 7.5 year from 1996.05.01 (i.e., 2003.10.28 to 2018.10.21). 

Large filament eruption on 31 July 2025

 

Large chromospheric filament erupted on the North-East limb on 31 July 2025, and later, other prominence had erupted from the same limb. Video covers 00:00:42 UT - 09:12:42 UT as observed by GONG at Learmonth, Australia.  

GONG/TD fiber-optic connection

Monday morning, 28 July, about 8am local time, the fiber-optic cable to GONG at Teide was damaged.  An external company was called in. The repairs started later same day, and were competed next morning. GONG/TD is back on line, but the inspection indicated that the fiber-optic connectors are very old and not in a very good condition. The company is developing a plan for replacing these connectors with new standard ones. The date of this additional work is not yet determined. GONG/TD continued taking observations during this period, and no data were lost due to the incident.

GONG/TD LCVR temperature control issue

After the last Preventative Maintenance at the GONG Teide (TD) site (Canary Islands, Spain) that ended on June 1st, GONG QA monitor showed excessive scatter in airstats plots. The potential issue was traced down to the temperature control of the LCVR (Liquid Crystal Variable Retarder). Preliminary science tests didn't show any problem with the data. As a temporary solution, the LCVR temperature control was turned off on June 24th. The TD airstats came back to normal. A sharp boundary between the data points distribution before and after the LCVR temperature control was disabled is seen on the Figure. We are working to confirm that the problem didn't affect the data.

GONG refurbishment project update

NISP group has successfully completed vetting one of the GONG EVT cameras that will upgrade one of the engineering sites in Boulder, CO. Engineering group has already mounted the next new EVT camera, one of the two that still needs to be vetted, and we are going to start vetting the data from this camera as soon as we have enough good sunny days.

 

 

Fun prominence eruption

 

Watch how a remote erupting feature "flies" through the prominence and destabilizes it.

GONG/BB connectivity issues (updated on 7/22/2025)

On 19 July, GONG/Big Bear experienced issues with connecting to the network. Rebooting bbgong workstation did not fix the issue. The team reached out to the local support team asking them to investigate.

As an update (7/22/2025): The issue was traced to a failure of BBSO Netgear switch's Female Transceiver Port for Fiber connection. The failed part was replaced, and the connection to GONG/BB has been restored. 

GONG Duty Cycle

On November 28, 2022, the volcanic eruption shut down the NSF's GONG station at Mauna Loa, Hawai'i. Since then, GONG operated as 5-station network. It was designed as 6-station network because of helioseismology requirements of high duty cycle (fraction of 24-hour day with solar observations). The plot shows the duty cycle through April 2025. GONG still meets the helioseismology requirements, but one can clearly see a drop in the duty cycle at the end of 2022 from about 95% to 85-90%. The plan is to restart GONG station at Mauna Loa by the end of this year, after the road access and the electric power are restored.

NISP data server

Work has started on replacing current Isilon data server by new Ceph cluster. Hardware for a development (sandbox) server has arrived (see photo), and it will be installed later this year. Factoring in redundancy and object storage overhead, the usable capacity in the Ceph production cluster will be around 1.5PB. In comparison, the usable storage capacity of the existing Isilon cluster is about 1.0PB of which about 913TB is currently used.

GONG data processing update

 

Processing of the network-merged daily velocity and magnetogram images, p-mode-coefficient time series, and ring-diagram analysis products for GONG month 304, and the p-mode frequency data products for central GONG month 303 is completed and the data products are now available. 

Mauna Loa Access Road

The Central Federal Lands Highway Division of the Federal Highway Administration has updated its "Request for Qualifications (RFQ)" on sam.gov with new due date 9 July 2025. That means that the schedule for Mauna Loa Access road is delayed by about a month with road completion estimated in Nov 2025. 

 

Large prominence eruption on 5 July 2025

See a large prominence at the North-West limb of the Sun rising and erupting as observed by GONG stations at Learmonth, Australia and Teide, Canary Islands on 5 July 2025, between 03:00:42 UT and 11:06:11 UT.

NISP group continues working on the GONG refurbishment project.

NISP Data Center, scientists, and engineers are currently vetting another new EVT (Emergent Vision Technologies) GONG camera at one of the NISP engineering sites in Boulder, Colorado. Five of the EVT cameras have already replaced old SMD (Silicon Mountain Design company) cameras at five sites of the GONG network. We have two more EVT cameras to vet. The two cameras and the one being currently tested, will upgrade the engineering sites.

GONG/UD Monsoon Shutdown

 The GONG station at the Udaipur Solar Observatory, India, will be commencing its annual monsoon shutdown this week.

 As the site Pyranometer indicates, the sky quality is degrading.

 

GONG operations at Big Bear, California

GONG at Big Bear Solar Observatory is currently down due to the electric power outage. Bear Valley Electric Service (BVES) informed the customers that Southern California Edison (SCE) implemented a Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) affecting BVES supply lines. This is due to high winds and fire conditions forecasted in the region. Currently the PSPS warning is issued until Sunday, June 22nd, 12:00 a.m.

GONG data processing update

Processing of the network-merged daily velocity and magnetogram images, p-mode-coefficient time series, and ring-diagram analysis products for GONG month 303, and the p-mode frequency data products for central GONG month 302 is completed. The results are currently going through the final quality control before releasing it to the public.   

P.S.: As of 2025.06.23, the GONG data products have been cleared and are good to be used.

GONG data are used to predict magnetic connectivity for NASA's Parker Solar Probe

 

For the third time, NASA's Parker Solar Probe spacecraft reached its record-breaking perihelion (closest distance to the Sun on its orbit) of 9.86 of radius of the Sun.  Perihelion (encounter) 24 occurred on 2025/06/19 at 09:31 UT. Synoptic magnetogram shows the predictions of magnetic connectivity between solar surface and the spacecraft based on GONG and SDO/HMI observations. 

Summar solstice

 Dark shadows that may appear this time of year in some GONG H-alpha images (first photo) may be tree branches, not clouds. As we approach summer solstice and the sunset reaches its most northerly position, this part of the horizon may be obstructed by trees as in the second image taken by Tim Purdy at GONG site at Big Bear Solar Observatory, California.

 

From a travel journal

For those who traveled to a recent meeting of the American Astronomical Society, here are some snapshots of murals in downtown of Anchorage. Some of these murals are visible from the main streets (like the first one, Denai'na mural by Crystal Worl, across the street from the convention center). Other are hidden in the back-alleys (second photo showing walruses by Richard Zeigler - Ziggy). Third photo shows Ziggy working on his new project - in memory of  people who  died on streets of Anchorage from freezing cold. He is an interesting character. The last photo shows the Alaska’s Marine Life Mural by Robert  Wyland, who created 100+ murals around the world showing whales.

"Nature India" highlights recent finding based on GONG data

 

Nature India, a digital magazine providing information on India’s science, highlighted the recent findings by Indian scientists in collaboration with the National Solar Observatory (NSO) about the effect of the Coriolis force on flows around sunspots, and how these flows shape the Sun’s rotation beneath the visible solar surface. The findings were made possible by the long-term of observations from the NSF's Global Oscillation Network Group (GONG).

GONG data-based time-lapse videos of solar activity cycle

John Boyd, an amateur astronomer and a retired Mathematician who used to work in the space program for NASA has recently created a time-lapse video spanning from 2020 to 2024  using the H-alpha Gong images. The videos, which are available via John's YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@Ha656nm,  are intended for the outreach for local astronomy club (the Santa Barbara Astronomical Units, SBAU) and educational purposes.

Did this filament eruption cause the CME?

Coronal mass ejection, which erupted from the Sun on 15 June 2025 near the Northern pole (marked by the white arrows in LASCO C2 and C3 coronargaph images, the middle and right panels) does not seem to have a clear source region. M8.5-class flare associated with active region 14114 (bright area East/left of central meridian in the left panel) occurred much later. It was, however, a small filament (marked by a white arrow in the left panel), which slowly rose and eventually erupted. Was this filament a possible source of this CME?  Watch the videos and judge for yourself. Also, note the time - filament disappeared at 3:45 UT. At about 3:10 UT, two small bright ribbons started developing near filament's south end. Similar flare ribbons albeit much larger is size are typical for so called two-ribbon flares indicating an energy release at the reconnecton site above the magnetic field neutral line. Filaments overlay the neutral lines of large-scale magnetic field. The first indication of the CME in LASCO C2 coronagraph can be noticed at 4:12 UT. LASCO imagery provided courtesy of NASA and ESA.

GONG/LE interruption

Early this week (7- 9 June), GONG/LE observations were interrupted by a damage to the camera trigger cable.  The root-cause was identified by the NISP engineering team via remote troubleshooting, and while the cable cannot be repaired, the solution was found to restore the operations. During the troubleshooting, the H-alpha observations may show a rapid image rotation. The observations are back to normal starting 11 June, 2025.

Single-site synoptic maps

In addition to network merged synoptic maps, NISP Data center now creates single-site synoptic maps. These maps are used to monitor the magnetogram data products as derived using newly deployed EVT cameras and to evaluate the impact of merging data taken with two different type of cameras into a network-merged data products. Two images provide the examples of single-site (GONG/LE, top) and network-merged (bottom) synoptic maps for Carrington rotation (CR) 2296 recently created by Thomas Wentzel. Two maps are nearly identical, which indicates a  good level of uniformity of observations taken at different sites.