The sun showed its power. We were very lucky
NASA has published a new photo of the Sun. We can see a solar flare classified as X-Class, i.e. the most powerful one. The photo is impressive.
An X3.38-class solar flare occurred on February 9 at 2:10 p.m. Polish time. The eruption occurred from a place called AR3576, from which a smaller M-class flare occurred on February 5. NASA managed to capture the moment of the stronger event in a photo that is definitely worth seeing.
Huge solar flare in the photo
Fortunately for us, the Earth was in the crosshairs of such a huge flare in this case. This does not mean that we did not feel its effects. It caused shortwave radio outages in South America, Africa and the South Atlantic.
They were caused by a strong impact of X-rays and extreme ultraviolet radiation. The energy from the flare reached Earth in about 8 minutes. Physicist Keith Strong believes that we were very lucky, because such a large flare could have had catastrophic consequences if it had hit Earth directly.
Solar flares have their own classes that determine their power. The strongest are X. Behind them, about 10 times weaker, are M-class flares. Next are classes C, B and A. Additionally, a number from 1 to 10 (in the case of class In the case of this particular flare, we are talking about X3.38.