X2-FLARE BLASTS EARTH'S IONOSPHEREX2-FLARE BLASTS EARTH'S IONOSPHERE

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During the time that terrestrial shortwave transmissions were blacked out, the sun filled in the gap with a loud radio burst of its own. In New Mexico, amateur radio astronomer Thomas Ashcraft recorded the sounds. “This radio burst was a strong one and might be too intense for headphones,” cautions Ashcraft.

Solar radio bursts are caused by strong shock waves moving through the sun’s atmosphere. (Electrons accelerated by the shock front excite plasma instabilities which, in turn, produce shortwave static.) They are usually a sign that a CME is emerging from the blast site–and indeed this flare produced a very bright CME. Solar flare alerts: text, voice. 

Angry sun spits two million-mph tongues of fire

The sun erupted with two of the strongest solar flares it can unleash Friday, just days after blasting an intense solar storm at Earth.

The sun fired off a flare that registered at X1.7 on the space weather scale at 4:01 a.m. EDT (0801 GMT) Friday, then followed with an X.2-class event at 11:07 a.m. EDT (1507 GMT). NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured video of the X1.7 solar flare, which came after several smaller sun storms over the last few days.

Both powerful flares erupted from a new sunspot cluster called Region 1882 and sparked temporary radio blackouts, officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) said in an update. But neither eruption is likely to spark major geomagnetic storms in Earth’s magnetic field, they added.