Huge Solar Flares Keep Erupting From Busy Sunspot

A huge X1.2-class solar flare erupted from the sun late Tuesday (May 14, 2013), the fourth major flare in two days from a busy sunspot on the surface of the sun. NASA’s Solar Dynamic Observatory captured this view of the event.
CREDIT: NASA/SDO

Live Science

An overachieving sunspot on the surface of the sun unleashed its fourth major solar flare in two days late Tuesday (May 14), a solar storm that may deal Earth a glancing blow, space weather experts say.

The active sunspot AR1748 roared to life Tuesday night releasing an X-class solar flare — the strongest type the sun can experience — that peaked at 9:48 p.m. EDT (0148 May 15 GMT), according to NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo. The flare came after a relative lull in activity from sunspot AR1748, which fired off three monster X-class solar flares within a 24-hour period between Sunday and Monday.

In a morning update, NOAA space weather officials said they are studying this latest solar flare from AR1748 to see if it coincided with an eruption of super-hot solar plasma known as a coronal mass ejection, or CME. Such explosions can unleash huge waves of charged solar material streaking out into space at millions of miles per hour.  [Sun Unleashes Biggest Flares of 2013 (Photos)] 

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