The sun is having quite a week.
Our nearest star has shot out three powerful solar flares in the past two days, sending bursts of hot plasma into the solar system, on a possible collision course with Earth's magnetic field.
The most extreme of those flares — a class X9.3 flare — was the most powerful flare we've seen in more than 10 years.
An X2.2 flare shot out just before the X9 flare on Wednesday, and an X1.3 flare shot forth from the star on Thursday.
"This is a decade-class flare. A list of the most powerful solar flares recorded since 1976 ranks today's flare at number 14, tied with a similar explosion in 1990," wrote Tony Phillips, who runs spaceweather.com, on Thursday. "However, compared to the iconic Carrington Event of 1859, or even the more recent Halloween storms of 2003, this event is relatively mild." Read more...
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