Sun Fires Off Major Solar Flare From Earth-Facing Sunspot

A major solar flare erupted from the sun on Thursday in the strongest storm yet of our star's current weather cycle. Space.com reports: The sun fired off an X1-class solar flare, its most powerful kind of flare, that peaked at 11:35 a.m. EDT (1535 GMT), according to an alert from the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), which tracks space weather events. The flare caused a temporary, but strong, radio blackout across the sunlit side of Earth centered on South America, the group wrote in an statement. NASA officials called the solar eruption a "significant solar flare," adding that it was captured in real-time video by the space agency's Solar Dynamics Observatory. A coronal mass ejection from the flare, a huge eruption of charged particles, could reach Earth by Saturday or Sunday (Oct. 30-31), just in time for Halloween, SpaceWeather.com reported. The eruption could supercharge Earth's northern lights and potentially interfere with satellite-based communications. [...] Thursday's flare appeared to also spawn a coronal mass ejection, SWPC officials said. [...] The sun is in the early days of its current solar activity cycle, each of which lasts 11 years. The current cycle, called solar cycle 25, began in December 2019.

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