{"id":22171,"date":"2017-09-16T06:49:35","date_gmt":"2017-09-16T10:49:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cosmicconvergence.org\/?p=22171"},"modified":"2017-09-16T06:49:35","modified_gmt":"2017-09-16T10:49:35","slug":"sun-unleashes-monster-solar-flare-strongest-in-a-decade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cosmicconvergence.org\/?p=22171","title":{"rendered":"Sun Unleashes Monster Solar Flare, Strongest in a Decade"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Sarah Lewin, Space.com Associate Editor
\nSpace.com<\/span><\/p>\n

This article was updated at 5:44 p.m. EDT to indicate that a coronal mass ejection was observed coming from the site of the solar flare.<\/em><\/p>\n

Early this morning (Sept. 6), the sun released two powerful solar flares \u2014 the second was the most powerful in more than a decade.<\/p>\n

At 5:10 a.m. EDT (0910 GMT), an X-class solar flare \u2014 the most powerful sun-storm category \u2014 blasted from a large sunspot on the sun’s surface. That flare was the strongest since 2015, at X2.2, but it was dwarfed just 3 hours later, at 8:02 a.m. EDT (1202 GMT), by an X9.3 flare, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC). The last X9 flare\u00a0occurred in 2006<\/a>\u00a0(coming in at X9.0).<\/p>\n

According to SWPC<\/a>, the flares resulted in radio blackouts: high-frequency radio experienced a “wide area of blackouts, loss of contact for up to an hour over [the] sunlit side of Earth,” and low frequency communication, used in navigation, was degraded for an hour. [The Sun’s Wrath: Worst Solar Storms in History<\/a>]<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/div>
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A massive, X9.3-class solar flare blasted from the sun at 8:02 a.m. EDT (1202 GMT).<\/div>\n

Credit: SDO\/AIA\/Steve Spaleta<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Solar flares occur when the sun’s magnetic field \u2014 which creates the dark sunspots on the star’s surface \u2014 twists up and reconnects, blasting energy outward and superheating the solar surface. X-class solar flares\u00a0can cause radiation storms<\/a>\u00a0in Earth’s upper atmosphere and trigger radio blackouts, as happened earlier this morning.<\/p>\n

During large solar flares, the sun can also sling a cloud of energetic plasma from its body, an event called a coronal mass ejection (CME).<\/p>\n

“It was accompanied by radio emissions that suggest there’s a potential for a CME,” SWPC space scientist Rob Steenburgh told Space.com. “However, we have to wait until we get some coronagraph imagery that would capture that event for a definitive answer.”<\/p>\n