Sun Unleashes Mid-level Flare

SDO captured this image of the mid-level flare, an M6.6-class, on June 22, 2015.

Credits: NASA/SDO

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The sun emitted a mid-level solar flare, peaking at 2:23 p.m. EDT on June 22, 2015. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the sun constantly, captured an image of the event. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.

To see how this event may affect Earth, please visit NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center at http://spaceweather.gov, the U.S. government's official source for space weather forecasts, alerts, watches and warnings.

This flare is classified as a M6.6 flare. M-class flares are a tenth the size of the most intense flares, the X-class flares. The number provides more information about its strength. An M2 is twice as intense as an M1, an M3 is three times as intense, etc.

Updates will be provided as needed.

Quelle: NASA

published: Monday, June 22, 2015 20:33 UTC

At 1823 UT (12:23 PM EDT), the active region that produced the event hitting Earth right now erupted again.  A long duration x-ray flare reached R2 (Moderate) Radio Blackout levels, as seen in the accompanying GOES Solar X-Ray Imager picture.  Thus, users impacted by solar flares and users impacted by geomagnetic storms were each being affected.  Just as importantly, early imagery indicates a coronal mass ejection (CME) also erupted.  More data are needed to confirm the direction and speed of the CME, so stay tuned here for more updates.  In the meantime, the Solar Radiation storm continues unabated, briefly reaching S3 levels, so June 22 has seen significant space weather across all of the NOAA Space Weather Scales.

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