This week, the Sun erupted with a powerful solar flare, and the incident was caught in real-time by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. NASA has shared remarkable footage of the event, which took place on January 20, peaking at 1:01 a.m. ET.
“Solar flares are powerful bursts of energy,” NASA writes. “Flares and solar eruptions can impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals, and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts.”
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare – as seen in the bright flash on the right side of this image of the Sun – on January 20. The image from SDO’s Atmospheric Imaging Assembly 131 Ångström channel (colorized in teal) shows a subset of extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the extremely hot material in flares. Credits: NASA/SDOThe Solar Dynamics Observatory constantly observes this sun, waiting to capture moments like this and seeing how the star changes over time. The image is colorized into this blue shade to better show off the flare event, with the blue representing the extreme ultraviolet light given off by the Sun due to its heat. As well as the whole-Sun image above, NASA also released a close-up clip which shows the flaring region in more detail:
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A zoom in on the flaring region. Credits: NASA/SDOThis was classified as a M5.5 solar flare, making it one of the more intense types of flare to have been spotted. According to the Space Weather Prediction Center, there are five levels to measure solar flare intensity, each designated by a letter. The lowest is the A level, followed by B, C, M, and X flares, with each level giving off X-rays ten times more powerful than the level below. As an M flare, this event was on the stronger end of the scale, though not quite as dramatic as the X-1 class flare observed in October last year.
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Sun emits most powerful solar flare observed in six years
The sun just let out a powerful solar flare -- the most powerful since 2017, and among the most powerful recorded to date. It even affected communications on Earth, due to the effects of space weather resulting from the flare.
The event occurred at 12:02 p.m. ET on December 14, and was observed by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), a space-based mission launched in 2010 that orbits the Earth to study the sun. SDO captured not only a still image of the flare, seen as a white feature on the right-hand side of this image of the sun, but also video footage of the flare developing.
