British News Agency

The laboratory stated: “Two days ago, the southern sunspot group approaching Earth reached its largest size of the year. The total area of the complex measured at the beginning of the day was 1,600 units,” adding:

“This represents about 60% of the size of the largest sunspot groups of the 21st century, and is also more than one-third larger than the 1,200-unit record recorded in May of this year.”

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which assigns numbers to sunspot groups, designated the new complex with three separate codes: 4296, 4294, and 4298.

Scientists described the “silence” of this massive sunspot group — with no observed activity — as “a mystery rivaling in incomprehensibility the silence of the universe itself”: “Today, group 4274 (now renamed 4299), with an official area of only 100 units, produced a new X-ray flare. The laboratory did not rule out the possibility that the new sunspot group may be accumulating energy for a superflare.”