On Tuesday (July 23), Europe’s Solar Orbiter (SolO) spacecraft observed an extremely powerful X14-class solar flare erupting from the far side of the Sun.
This was not the most powerful flare ever recorded, estimated at approximately X45 in 2003, but Solar flare Radiation of this magnitude could cause a long-lasting radiation storm and possibly a global blackout. EarthX-Class is at the top of the classification scale, ejecting energy ten times more powerfully than M-Class flares, which come in second on the list.
“This was the largest estimated GOES-class flare ever seen,” said Samuel Crooker, principal investigator of SolO’s X-ray Imaging Spectrometer and Telescope (STIX). He told SpaceWeather.com“The other large flares we detected are from May 20, 2024 (X12) and July 17, 2023 (X10). All of these originate from the far side of the Sun.”
On the Earth side of the Sun, the largest flare recorded so far in the current cycle is Occurs on May 14, 2024X8.9, associated with violent sunspots Historical geomagnetic storms This led to the worldwide occurrence of the Aurora Borealis.
This flare was accompanied by a very large coronal mass ejection (CME), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)of Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). A CME is an explosion of plasma and magnetic fields that shoots outward from the Sun’s atmosphere. The burst of magnetic plasma associated with the July 23 X-class flare did not travel toward the Sun, but if it had, it could have been a significant solar storm.
Had this CME been on a path that would have resulted in a collision with Earth, it could have had significant effects on our planet. While the Northern Lights may have been impressive to watch, the worry is that such an intense burst of energetic particles being hurled towards us could have threatened major technical problems and power outages, similar to the incident that severely affected Quebec’s power grid in 1989. According to SpaceWeather.com:.
Remember, the sun is constantly rotating, so this will continue to be an area to watch as it comes back into view within the next week and a half.
