NASA did images released from what it says is the most powerful solar flare in six years, a fiery flash on the sun’s surface 93m miles away that briefly knocked out some radio communications on Earth on Thursday.
The agency captured the brightly colored images of the phenomenon known as a coronal mass ejection (CME) from its Solar Dynamics Observatory, a spacecraft launched in 2010 that continuously monitors the sun’s activity.
It was, Nasa say, an X-class flare of the highest intensity, with the potential to affect radio communications, electrical power grids, navigation signals and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts.
Thursday’s burst of energy caused about two hours of radio interference in some parts of the US and elsewhere during daylight hours. The National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center gave it a “wonderful event … probably one of the greatest solar radio events ever recorded”.
The center said its impact on radio communications was felt between noon and 2 p.m. ET Thursday, and that its scientists were analyzing other effects of the CME “located over the far northwest region of the sun.”
It was the strongest solar flare recorded since September 10, 2017, the center said, and the most powerful of the current solar cycle by some distance.
Most X-class solar flares that hit Earth are rated between one and nine, with Thursday’s event classified as an X8.
The European Space Agency has said the most powerful solar flare in recorded history was an X28 event on November 4, 2003.
