Scientists at the Shernberg Astronomy Institute of the Moscow State University reported record-high emissions of electromagnetic energy on the Sun, the biggest since the 1970s. Over the past few days, the volume of sun radiation, exceeded the normal level by 1,000-fold. According to these scientists, this kind of activity at solar minimum is quite a phenomena and considered an anomaly as, “Outbursts on the Sun like this have been extremely infrequent over the past 30 years.” Find out more here.

Even though there are no SOHO images of this massive event and no mention of a Bakeout, initial reports suggest that SOHO was taken offline as a precautinary measure.

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From the report Solar physicist says weak sun produces record solar outburst, this event caused "significant events worldwide". Solar physicist Dale Gary reports:

"The odd thing about this outburst was that the Sun is supposed to be at the minimum phase of its 11-year cycle," said Gary.

"Nevertheless, the disruption lasted more than an hour, produced a record amount of radio noise, and caused massive disruptions of Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) receivers world wide."

Before the outburst, the radio output of the Sun in the GPS broadcasting band was 54 on the scale of solar flux units. During the outburst, associated with a large solar flare, the radio noise reached around 1 million solar flux units, according OVSA instruments.

"This reading is more than 10 times the previous record, and calls into question scientists' assumptions of the extent to which the Sun can interfere with GPS and wireless communications,"

Source: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Dec 15, Space & Earth science

What is a "Bakeout?"
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Using a multi-frequency radiotelescope that has been modified and customized for binaural audio recording it is possible to actually record and hear the massive explosions on the Sun. Here is a collection of specimen sound files of the major types of solar radio emissions of significant events recorded in the past few years. The image of sunspot 930 was also accompanied by a rare tsunami type "Moreton Wave" that rippled across the Sun, for the story from Space.com click here.

A "sunspot" is a dark area of the solar surface, caused by a temperature variation at the photosphere (the visible surface of the Sun or a star). The temperature at the center of a typical sunspot is approximately 4240 kelvins, while the solar photosphere is at approximately 6000 kelvins. A sunspot is approximately 1000 times stronger than the average magnetic field of the Sun and various theories use this magnetic variation to explain why sunspots are areas where as you look down into the Sun, the temperatures are cooler and not hotter as one would expect.
Now that the activity of the Sun has become increasingly unpredictable, scientists are starting to dispel the myth of solar minimum and point out that the most severe x-rated solar flares can occur at any time. Click the adjacent graph to see how often we have been blasted by X-rated flares over the last three solar cycles. The associated article can be found here .
Go toSpaceweather.com to find out about The classification of X-ray Solar Flares or "Solar Flare Alphabet Soup" .

The X-ray Solar status monitor analyses the status of the previous 24 hours of 5 minute Long-wavelength X-ray data from each satellite (GOES 8 and GOES 10) and an appropriate level of activity for the past 24 hours is assigned.

The Geomagnetic Field status monitor analyses the previous 24 hours of the Kp Index and an appropriate level of activity for the past 24 hours is assigned. The Kp Idex. A 3-hourly planetary geomagnetic index of activity generated in Gottingen, Germany, based on the K Iindex from 12 or 13 stations distributed around the world. The K index measures the deviation from that of a "quiet day" at a particular recording station.

You can see what's been happening on the sun in the last few days by watching a video of a compilation of coronagraphs. Click to obtain the Joyfire Space Weather Explorer window.