The sun unleashed its largest flare in almost a decade on Tuesday, following a series of intense solar storms that recently hit Earth, painting the skies with stunning northern lights in unusual locations.
According to an update from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), this is the most significant flare of the current 11-year solar cycle, which is nearing its peak. Fortunately, Earth is not in the direct path of this flare as it erupted from a region of the sun moving away from our planet.
Captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, the X-ray flare was the strongest since 2005, measuring X8.7 on the flare scale. Bryan Brasher from NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado, suggested that the flare might be even more powerful once data from other sources is analyzed.
This event follows a series of flares and coronal mass ejections over the past week, which posed threats to power and communications systems both on Earth and in orbit. NASA reported that the weekend's geomagnetic storm caused one of its environmental satellites to unexpectedly change its orientation due to reduced altitude caused by the space weather, forcing it into a protective hibernation known as safe mode. Additionally, astronauts aboard the International Space Station were advised to remain in areas with strong radiation shielding, though NASA assured that the crew was never in any immediate danger.
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