Sun unleashes powerful X2-class flare.

[LazyHippo]

The sun blasted out a superpowerful X-class flare on Friday afternoon (March 3), and a NASA spacecraft captured footage of the dramatic event.

 

The solar flare — an intense burst of high-energy radiation — erupted Friday at 12:52 p.m. EST (1752 GMT). It registered as an X2.1, NASA officials said, meaning it was particularly intense. (Solar scientists categorize potent flares into three categories, with C being the weakest, M being medium-strength and X the most powerful.)

 

The power of Friday's flare is on full display in footage captured by NASA's Earth-orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), which has been studying the sun in detail since 2010.
 

 

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft captured this view of an X2.1 flare erupting from the sun on March 3, 2023. (Image credit: NASA/SDO)
 

 

Radiation from the flare, which erupted from a sunspot called AR 3234, caused a shortwave radio blackout over North and South America.

 

"Aviators and ham radio operators may have noticed loss of signal and other unusual propagation effects at frequencies below 30 MHz for as much as an hour after the flare," SpaceWeather.com wrote.
 

Powerful flares are often accompanied by coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which send huge clouds of solar plasma rocketing into space at millions of miles per hour. These clouds can spawn geomagnetic storms here on Earth, which in turn can affect power grids and orbiting spacecraft, as well as supercharge our planet's auroral displays.

 

It's unclear at the moment if a CME did erupt in concert with Friday's X2.1 flare, or if that CME would be headed toward Earth. (Some of these plasma clouds miss our planet.)
 

Friday's flare didn't come out of the blue: The sun has been extremely active lately, firing off a number of strong flares and CMEs.

For example, solar outbursts triggered strong geomagnetic storms in the last few days of February. These storms ramped up auroras, dazzling skywatchers around the world.

These dancing atmospheric light shows, which are usually confined to very high latitudes, were observed as far from the poles as California's Death Valley and Perth, the capital of Western Australia.

Solar activity waxes and wanes on an 11-year cycle. Earth's star is clearly in an active phase of the current cycle at the moment, so we should be on the lookout for more outbursts.
 

 

 

[chort2177]

I do wish they would stick with one descriptor here. "A massive solar flare" and "The huge solar flare", please just pick one.😅

That said this was neither "massive" nor "huge". X2.2 is just the start of the X scale and there is evidence for flares in the X45 range and it's thought the sun can produce flares up to and over X100. Now those flares are "massive" and "huge" and can even be called unbelievable.

[LazyHippo]

17 hours ago, chort2177 said:

Now those flares are "massive" and "huge" and can even be called unbelievable.

 

 

I dont agree with this one, as the X flares are about 10 times per year as NASA has collected and we do know the Sun is at a crucial point in some way of its end of cycle and the beginning of the next one when a tumuluous behavior is happening during that process.

So wouldnt be surprised we get hit with a decent X flare, hopefully our magnetic field will repel most of that but we will still have some damage. 😕 

[GHARIB]

On 4/24/2023 at 7:26 AM, chort2177 said:

I do wish they would stick with one descriptor here. "A massive solar flare" and "The huge solar flare", please just pick one.😅

That said this was neither "massive" nor "huge". X2.2 is just the start of the X scale and there is evidence for flares in the X45 range and it's thought the sun can produce flares up to and over X100. Now those flares are "massive" and "huge" and can even be called unbelievable.

 

On 4/25/2023 at 1:14 AM, LazyHippo said:

 

 

I dont agree with this one, as the X flares are about 10 times per year as NASA has collected and we do know the Sun is at a crucial point in some way of its end of cycle and the beginning of the next one when a tumuluous behavior is happening during that process.

So wouldnt be surprised we get hit with a decent X flare, hopefully our magnetic field will repel most of that but we will still have some damage. 😕 

 

 

 

@LazyHippo you got fooled 😄 

 

spambots are owning the world 🤪

 

I think that they generate answer by AI 😄 

 

Gonna to ask my fellows about this new generation of AI"ish" bots

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 26, 2023 by GHARIB