Powerful solar flares erupted on the sun’s surface last Thursday from complex sunspots that could literally erupt again very soon.
It was an explosion of charged particles It is registered as an X1.2 class beacon. Flare X is the strongest and can cause class flare geomagnetic storm It affects the earth’s magnetic field which has the potential to damage satellites, communications equipment and even power grids.
The flare was the strongest seen since at least October.
NASA/SDO
However, X1 emission like this is at the lower end of the X scale. So no direct damage from the blast itself was reported, other than shortwave radio outages in parts of Australia and the South Pacific. This dimming is the result of energetic solar flares traveling at the speed of light towards our planet, reaching Earth in just eight minutes. However, it’s short.
However, scientists believe there must be more to this sunspot arsenal.
wrote former NASA astronomer Tony Phillips Spaceweather.com.
Powerful flares are often accompanied by a coronal mass ejection (CME) of hot plasma which can be ejected towards the Earth but at a much slower rate, taking a day or more to make the journey.
When there is a direct impact on Earth, the result can be a bright aurora at higher latitudes, but also damage to the aforementioned infrastructure. So far, there have been no CME reports accompanying Thursday’s glow.
This is a welcome surprise, as the massive and extremely complex sunspots they produce have spent the early part of the week emitting powerful flares and CMEs on the far side of the sun. Now that sunspot, cataloged as AR3182, orbits within our direct line of sight from Earth, meaning future CMEs in the coming days could be aimed directly at us.
owned by NOAA Space Weather Forecast Center forecasts 10 percent more chance of X flares over the weekend.
