United States: The Sun emitted a significant solar flare peaking at 11:35 a.m. EDT today. This flare was captured by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Solar flares are harmful bursts of radiation. However, harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass Earth’s atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground. However, it is likely to hit Earth’s magnetic field on Saturday.
The Space Weather Prediction Center issued a geomagnetic storm watch on Friday for October 30 under the guidance of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) that occurred from the Sun late Thursday night will take more than two days to cross the Sun-Earth divide.
This flare was intense enough to disturb the atmosphere in the layer where Global Positioning System (GPS) and communications signals travel. This geomagnetic storm is set to hit Earth and NASA has warned it as a ‘significant’ flare eruption from the Sun.
“POW! The sun just served up a powerful flare”, NASA tweeted.
The importance of the sunspot is to determine if the massive solar flare could cause anyharm to Earth. The flare has been categorized as XI category and can cause a temporary but strong blackout across the sunlit side of Earth i.e. South America.
NASA works as the research arm to observe the Sun and our space environment constantly with a fleet of spacecraft that study everything from Sun’s activity to the solar atmosphere.