White to move and mate in two #752 - New Solar Flares

by AKALib

Community

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Tuesday, Dec. 02, 2025 Tuesday, Dec. 02, 2025 at 3:00:11pm PST

Two new active regions on the Sun's surface are now rotating into view.

Region 4294 emitted an M5.9 (R2-Moderate) solar flare on Friday.
Region 4299 emitted a 2x more energetic X1.9 (R3-Strong) solar flare on Monday at 02:49 UTC. This is near region 4274 which emitted X class flares and CMEs 2-3 weeks ago and produced bright auroras around the world.

The X1.9-class solar flare briefly knocked out radio communications across Australia and parts of southeast Asia. The associated Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) is not directed at Earth; a glancing blow might produce a mild geo-mag storm and auroras.

Below is a still image from a GIF captured by the NASA GOES-19 satellite and a Solar Synoptic Map from NOAA, depicting various hand-annotated active regions on the surface of the Sun facing earth.

GOES-19 image: www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/...
Synoptic Map: www.swpc.noaa.gov/...

Solar weather experts will be keeping an eye on these regions as they rotate towards the center in about 6 days when any eruptions will head towards earth.

Here is a closer image from a GIF taken by the NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

Now let’s solve today’s puzzle composed in 1881 by noted American chess composer Eugene Beauharnais Cook (1830 - 1915). He was also a pioneering figure skater and author of the book American Chess-nuts: A Collection of Problem s.

P.S.

The chess puzzle is published on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6:00 p.m. ET.

It is customary for advanced players to wait till midnight ET before posting the full solution. Before then, they provide some stats about the solution (e.g., the minimum number of distinct checkmate moves), help guide others, and sometimes post hints. But there are no hard-and-fast rules; feel free to post comments as you please.

Online Board

Solution (shows first move only)

Full Solution