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A massive solar flare exploded from the sun today, the largest of three X-class flares that have impacted Earth in the last 24 hours, and the most intense flare of the current solar cycle. Due to this event, there are significant high-frequency radio black-outs today and it is likely geomagnetic storm conditions will be likely around Earth in the coming days. This most recent X class flare is rated as a X 6.3. It generated an R3 radio blackout, which is considered “strong” on a 5-point scale, where R1 is “minor” with weak or minor degradation of HF radio communications...

Two outbursts from the sun occurred as widespread cellphone outages were reported throughout the United States on Thursday (Feb. 22). Two powerful solar flares erupted from the sun on the evening of Wednesday (Feb. 21) and during the early morning of Thursday (Feb. 22). An X1.8-class flare occurred at 6:07 p.m. ET (2307 GMT) on Feb. 21, and another, an X1.7 class flare, erupted at 1:32 a.m. ET (0632 GMT) on Feb. 22. The flares erupted from a region of the sun that "continues to exhibit strong magnetic complexity," the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) wrote in a statement...

GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH (G3-CLASS): Strong G3-class geomagnetic storms are possible during the early UT hours of March 31st when a Cannibal CME is expected to hit Earth's magnetic field. During such storms, naked-eye auroras can descend into the USA as far south as, e.g., Illinois and Oregon (geomagnetic latitude 50o). North Americans should be alert for auroras after local nightfall on March 30th. The hours before dawn on March 31st are probably best for Europeans. Aurora alerts: SMS Text. X-CLASS SOLAR FLARE: Earth-orbiting satellites have just detected an X1.3-class solar flare (March 30 @ 1737 UT). The source is active...

The House Homeland Security Committee heard expert testimony yesterday on the effects of a high-altitude nuclear detonation that could knock out the U.S. electrical grid for up to a year, resulting in the deaths of 90% of Americans. A nuclear attack from space would generate an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, that would "inflict devastating damage" on the U.S. Washington Examiner: In calling on the Pentagon and President Trump to move quickly to protect the grid, the experts testified that an explosion of a high-altitude nuclear bomb delivered by a missile or satellite "could be to shut down the U.S. electric...

The sun emitted a trio of mid-level solar flares on April 2-3, 2017. The first peaked at 4:02 a.m. EDT on April 2, the second peaked at 4:33 p.m. EDT on April 2, and the third peaked at 10:29 a.m. EDT on April 3. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the sun constantly, captured images of the three events. 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...

Surely there is no remedy to this potential danger or the federal government would take necessary precautions to protect us against this threat. After all, isn’t that precisely why government exists in the first place, to keep us safe? The good news is that protective equipment for the civilian grid is available and can be installed in a timely manner. The bad news is that the departments of Homeland Security and Energy have done little so far to protect us against this very real danger.

NASA has revealed that a massive hole, measuring more than ten per cent of the Sun's surface area, has opened up on our star. ... NASA says the huge hole is actually not of great concern, but it remains unclear why the coronal holes actually form. ..

Phil PlaitNovember 16, 2015 A new study says that violent space weather that could cost $2 trillion in damage is more common than previously thought In the years 774 and 993, the Earth was attacked from space. Not by aliens, but by a natural event—and it was very, very powerful. Whatever it was, it subtly altered the chemistry of our planet’s atmosphere, creating trace amounts of radioactive elements like chlorine-36, beryllium-10, and carbon-14. And those provide the clue to what the event was: Those isotopes are created when high-energy protons slam into our air. That means the source must have...

According to an Old English manuscript chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons, a mysterious "red crucifix" appeared in the "heavens" over Britain one evening in A.D. 774. Now astronomers say it may have been the supernova explosion that sprinkled unexplained traces of carbon-14 in tree rings that year, halfway around the world in Japan. Jonathon Allen, an undergraduate student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, made the connection this week after listening to a Nature podcast. He heard a team of Japanese scientists discussing new research in which they measured an odd spike in carbon-14 levels in tree rings...

Just over 1,200 years ago, the planet was hit by an extremely intense burst of high-energy radiation of unknown cause, scientists studying tree-ring data have found. The radiation burst, which seems to have hit between AD 774 and AD 775, was detected by looking at the amounts of the radioactive isotope carbon-14 in tree rings that formed during the AD 775 growing season in the Northern Hemisphere. The increase in 14C levels is so clear that the scientists, led by Fusa Miyake, a cosmic-ray physicist from Nagoya University in Japan, conclude that the atmospheric level of 14C must have jumped...

In the late summer of 1859, an extreme geomagnetic storm bombarded the planet, igniting the ghostly, emerald lights of the aurora across skies as far south as Cuba. These powerful solar eruptions of magnetized plasma hitting the Earth caused telegraph wires to spark, disabled communications and set fire to several telegraph offices, according to NASA In the modern world, the threat of space weather is far greater as storms like the Carrington Event of 1859 pose a risk to interconnected power grids, airline operations, satellites and communications networks across the globe. "The overall goal is to ensure that the nation...

The sun has had three major solar flares on its surface in the past two days that have affected communications on Earth and could send a shockwave through Earth this Friday, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The “solar events” caused brief blackouts in high frequency communications when they struck, twice on Tuesday morning and once this morning, all between the hours of 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. EDT.

One of the STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) spacecraft stopped phoning home to Earth on Oct. 1 “immediately after a planned reset of the spacecraft”, NASA said in an update last week. .... NASA didn’t say how badly solar weather forecasts are affected, but in other materials they have said both STEREO spacecraft are a crucial part of this work. STEREO’s pair of satellites ... aim to better map Sun eruptions ( “coronal mass ejections”) whose charged particles can disrupt satellite communications during solar storms. The mission has been ongoing since 2006 and they’ve viewed the far side of the...

The immediate burst of energy from the big flare yesterday had some effect on high frequency radio waves already (check out the first image in the gallery above), according to NOAA’s Space Weather prediction Center, but the hard-to-take CME particles are likely to go just above the Earth, singing us just a bit. The Associated Press reports: New calculations from satellite data show that the worst of the energetic particles streaming from the sun likely will go north or above Earth this time, , said Tom Berger, director of the Space Weather Prediction Center late Wednesday. So while the power...

Alan Boyle

WASHINGTON — A persistent failure by federal lawmakers to protect the nation’s electric grid from attack isn’t stopping private sector efforts to prevent damage from a nuclear blast.An Obama administration initiative to spend $7 billion on the development of the electric grid in six African nations, as Watchdog reported, earned a stern rebuke from a security expert concerned about the administration’s priorities.But state level efforts are under way to protect the grid against solar flares and electromagnetic pulses.As security experts work to raise awareness about surviving the potential destruction — caused by a shockwave after an explosion on the surface...

The sun unleashed two major solar flares early Tuesday (June 10) in amazing back-to-back storms from our nearest star. The first flare, a powerful X2.2-class solar flare, hit its maximum at about 7:42 a.m. EDT (1142 GMT). The second powerful X1.5-class flare, followed quickly behind, blasting out from the sun at 8:36 a.m. EDT (1236 GMT). Both flares could cause radio communication blackouts on Earth for about an hour, according to an alert from the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado. NASA's sun-observing Solar Dynamics Observatory captured a video of the flares from space. "Solar flares are powerful...

There are various stories about how powerful solar flares were, starting in 2012. Maybe they had an impact on the North Pole or South Pole. Maybe such an effect impacting how cold the winter of 2013/2014 has been. The previous winter -- from December 2012 to March 2013, was initially mild. Then the weather in the Spring was a little bit more chilly. Is it possible that Solar Flares affect the earth's poles. And in affecting the earth's poles, maybe they effect the weather. Anything is possible, and it is up to science to investigate such links. Maybe it would...

Within a year, nine out of 10 Americans could be dead. And whatever causes the national apocalypse—be it North Korean malice or the whims of the sun—the downfall will ultimately be our own fault. That's the fear of Newt Gingrich and other members of a high-profile coalition who are convinced that our fragile electrical grid could be wiped out at any moment. Their concern? Electromagnetic pulses, the short bursts of energy—caused by anything from a nuclear blast to a solar flare—that can wreak havoc on electrical systems on a massive scale. And the coalition believes it's coming soon.

The so-called X-class flare erupted a few hours ago (at 7:25 p.m. EST Feb. 24, or 12:25 a.m. UTC Feb. 25) and was captured by several spacecraft. If you have a pictures of the sun yourself to share, feel free to post them in the Universe Today Flickr pool. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory saw the flare growing in at least six different wavelengths of light, which are visible in the image above. This is classified this as an X4.9-class flare, which shows that it is pretty strong. X-flares are the most powerful kind that the sun emits, and each X...