A solar flare last weekend was the biggest on record since 2013 and caused radio blackouts on Earth.
22 fev
2023
– 20h10
(updated 2/23/2023 at 7:49 am)
Last weekend, a sun flare X-class, one of the most powerful on the leaderboard and the strongest in the last nine years. The event triggered a solar tsunami and caused radio blackouts on the planet. Yesterday (21), new explosions caused solar storm moderate on Earth.
The Sun continues to increase its activity gradually, towards the solar maximum that is expected to occur in 2025. In the process, sunspots cause huge eruptions that, in turn, reach the Earth in the form of geomagnetic storms.
The sunspot region AR3229 spewed out an unexpected X2.2-class flare on Feb. 17 and generated a coronal mass ejection. Class X is the most powerful type of explosion our star can produce and is sub-divided into X1 through X9. Scientists haven’t seen such a powerful event since 2013.
 
This explosion created a “solar tsunami”, triggering a radiation storm that caused radio blackouts on Earth. The surprise is that space weather experts expected an event of this magnitude from another even larger sunspot, AR3226.
As a result, there was a rare type of shock wave known as a solar tsunami, or magnetohydrodynamic wave (MHD) — a giant wave of plasma that can travel up to 901,000 km/h through the photosphere and reach an altitude of 100,000 km above the surface of the Sun.
Check out the explosion in different wavelengths below:
 
Also emitted by the solar tsunami was a Type II solar radio burst. That means a flux of ultraviolet radiation, X-rays and, of course, radium. The classification ranges from Type I (the weakest) to Type V, which can cause widespread blackouts.
On the 19th, the coronal mass ejection caused by the same sunspot region was even more intense:
ANOTHER HUGE JET: Sunspot region AR3229 produced another spectacular coronal jet but this time much larger than the last. The region is much further onto the solar disk so any height structured is more foreshortened. This jet soars out of the AIA field of view it gets so high. pic.twitter.com/aHyIuEU0rn
— Keith Strong (@drkstrong) February 19, 2023
Fortunately, none of these events caused major damage to our planet, other than radio blackouts lasting about an hour. Contrary to NASA’s predictions, the impact of the geomagnetic storm was small, passing by “grazing” the Earth.
Citizen scientist Thomas Ashcraft was able to record the audio of the radio burst on the 17th hitting Earth. Sound is produced by static created by radiation hitting the atmosphere; luckily, at that moment, Ashcraft’s telescope was pointed at the Sun.
New Solar Flares at Carnival
On Tuesday (21), a new sunspot region called AR3234 formed eruptions, including several M4 and M5 class (meaning medium power) events. They are ionizing the top of our atmosphere, causing radio blackouts at all longitudes on Earth.
So far, spots AR3234 and AR3229 are on the visible side of the Sun, that is, facing Earth. The first is still on the left side of the sun’s disk, while the second is moving more and more towards the center, directly towards us. However, there are no warnings of more intense than normal geomagnetic storms.
Source: spaceweather.com
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