NASA‘s Solar Dynamics Observatory — SDO — has been our unblinking eye on the Sun. It continually studies how solar activity is created and drives space weather.
Recently, the spacecraft has captured an image of the event: Sun emitting a strong solar flare, peaking at 7:57 p.m. EDT on Jan. 5, 2023. This flare is categorized as an X1.2 flare. The X-class designation designates the strongest flares, and the number gives more details regarding its strength.
According to Spaceweather.com, “The flare erupted from the sunspot AR3182. A dome of glowing-hot plasma inflated by the explosion lingered over the event site for more than an hour. This may have contained the debris. No coronal mass ejection (CME) has been observed emerging from the region as of yet.”
“A pulse of X-rays and extreme UV radiation from the flare ionized the top of Earth’s atmosphere, causing a shortwave radio blackout across South Pacific.”Â