The giant sunspot on the Sun, designated as AR3664, left us a parting gift, but this time without the bonus of the Aurora Borealis.
On May 10, AR3664 produced an X5.8 flare, followed by X1.7, X1.3, and a whopping X8.7 over the past 24 hours — the most powerful of the current 11-year solar cycle, according to NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center.
Solar flares are intense bursts of electromagnetic radiation that emit sunspots (dark formations located on the surface of the Sun). They are categorized by letters according to size (with class X flares being the most powerful) and numbers indicating power.
Despite the size and power of the current outbreak, it is unlikely that we will see a repeat of the widespread aurorae that occurred on May 10.
«Due to its location, any coronal mass ejection associated with this flare is not likely to have any geomagnetic impact on Earth», — NOAA wrote.
At the same time, problems with radio communication on the sunlit side of the Earth are still likely. According to SpaceWeather.comreports are already coming in from Australia and East Asia of almost complete blackouts of 20 MHz or lower frequencies.
When a sunspot is above the western edge of the Sun, it hits a certain spot that magnetically connects it to the Earth — essentially, a stream of protons then travels toward us on a superfast cosmic highway called the Parker spiral. The particles reach the Earth’s magnetic field, spin, and head toward the poles, where they react with our atmosphere and cause problems with shortwave radio transmission.