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| An artist's interpretation of a solar flare erupting from the sun. (Image credit: Shutterstock) |
Astronomers recently detected a massive explosion on the far side of the sun,
which may have spat out one of the most powerful flares the sun can produce.
A massive explosion on the far side of the sun recently spat out a potential
X-class flare — one of the most powerful solar flares the sun is capable of
producing. The resulting solar storm will narrowly miss Earth, but the sunspot
responsible for belching it out could soon be pointed directly at our planet.
The epic eruption was detected on Jan. 3 by the Solar and Heliospheric
Observatory (SOHO), an Earth-orbiting spacecraft co-operated by NASA and the
European Space Agency. SOHO spotted a bright stream of plasma, known as a
coronal mass ejection (CME), that emerged from the sun's southeastern limb,
according to
Spaceweather.com.
The CME was likely given off by a hidden far-side flare and registered as a
C-class event, the third highest class of solar flares. (Solar flare classes
include A, B, C, M and X, with each class being at least 10 times more
powerful than the previous one.) But based on the size and strength of the
visible CME, experts believe the hidden outburst that birthed it was
probably large enough to be designated as an X-class flare, Spaceweather.com
reported. But this has not been officially confirmed.
The most powerful X-class flares can erupt from the sun with an equivalent
force of around a billion hydrogen bombs, according to NASA. If one of these
flares hit Earth head on it could trigger widespread radio and electricity
blackouts on the side of the planet facing the sun and cause damage to
satellites in orbit around Earth. The resulting auroras would be so strong
they could even give nearby airplane passengers small doses of radiation,
according to NASA.
Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
modeled the solar storm given off by the most recent X-class flare and found
that it would narrowly miss Earth over the next few days, according to
Spaceweather.com. However, that doesn't mean we will stay in the clear for
long.
Astronomers believe the enormous flare was emitted from a sunspot — dark,
planet-sized regions that form in the sun’s lower atmosphere as the result
of magnetic disturbances — known as AR3163, which rotated onto the far side
of the sun around two weeks ago after spitting out a flurry of mild CMEs on
the sun's near side. Based on the potential power of the hidden flare,
experts think the sunspot has grown significantly in size since it
disappeared from view, Spaceweather.com reported.
When the recent flare erupted, AR3163 was predicted to reemerge onto the
near side of the sun within two days based on acoustic images, known as
helioseismic echoes, which can detect abnormalities on the hidden surface of
the sun. On Jan. 5, the closest edge of AR3163 began to appear on the solar
horizon as expected, according to Spaceweather.com. It will soon be pointed
directly at Earth and has the capacity to spit out more X-class flares, but
the chances of a direct hit are relatively low.
Earth is currently at perihelion, meaning that our planet is at its closest
point to the sun. On Jan. 4, another CME given off by an M-class flare,
which was capable of causing minor radio blackouts, bashed into Earth right
as the planet moved into its closest possible proximity to the sun.
Solar activity will continue to ramp up as we approach the peak of the sun's
11-year solar cycle, which will occur in 2025. During December 2022 there
were 24 active sunspots on the sun, the highest number for more than seven
years, according to
Spaceweather.com.
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Space & Astrophysics