A large explosion on the sun unleashed a robust solar flare from a brand new sunspot on Monday (Jan. 9), one that’s slowly turning to face the Earth.
The solar flare erupted at 1:50 p.m. EST (1850 GMT) as a X1.9-class sun storm that induced a brief, however robust, radio blackout throughout elements of South America, Central America and the Pacific Ocean, in keeping with a statement (opens in new tab) from the U.S. Area Climate Prediction Heart on the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. X-class flares are the strongest varieties of storms from the sun. Monday’s flare got here from the identical sunspot that fired off an X1.2-class solar flare on Jan. 5, NOAA reported.
“The supply is hyperactive sunspot AR3184,” astronomer Tony Phillips of the space weather web site SpaceWeather.com wrote in an update (opens in new tab). “Not one of the particles plumes will hit Earth; the sunspot isn’t dealing with our planet. It would flip in our path later this week.”
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NASA captured stunning images and video of the solar flare (opens in new tab) with its Photo voltaic Dynamics Observatory, a space-based telescope that regularly watches the sun in several wavelengths.
Photo voltaic flares are intense eruptions from the floor of the sun that explode at quite a lot of energy ranges. The weakest flares, categorised as A-, B- or C-type storms, are sometimes minor. The stronger M-class flares can fling charged particles at Earth that supercharge our planet’s auroras, amplifying shows of northern lights and southern lights.
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When aimed immediately at Earth, X-class solar flares “can impression radio communications, electrical energy grids, navigation alerts, and pose dangers to spacecraft and astronauts,” NASA stated in a statement (opens in new tab).
The sun is at the moment in an energetic phase of its 11-year climate solar cycle. The present phase is named Solar Cycle 25, which is predicted to peak in 2025.
NASA tracks solar flares and different space climate occasions by watching the sun with quite a lot of spacecraft. Along with the Solar Dynamics Observatory, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory or SOHO (a joint mission by NASA and the European Area Company) additionally frequently watches for space climate occasions.
E mail Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com (opens in new tab) or observe him @tariqjmalik (opens in new tab). Comply with us @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab), Facebook (opens in new tab) and Instagram (opens in new tab).
