Sun Releases Strong Flare

The Sun emitted a strong solar flare, peaking at 4:06 a.m. ET on Sunday, Dec. 8. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Solar Ultraviolet Imager, which watches the Sun constantly, captured an image of the event.

[Link]The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Solar Ultraviolet Imager captured this image of a solar flare - seen as the bright flash on the right side - on Dec. 8. The image shows a subset of extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the extremely hot material in flares and which is colorized in blue. Credit: NOAA

Solar flares are powerful bursts of energy. Flares and solar eruptions can impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals, and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts.

This flare is classified as a X2.2 flare. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength.

Data from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory is temporarily unavailable because of flooding in the building that houses the mission's data center. The image above was captured by the Solar Ultraviolet Imager (SUVI) on board NOAA's GOES-East satellite.

To see how such space weather may affect Earth, please visit NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center https://spaceweather.gov/, the U.S. government's official source for space weather forecasts, watches, warnings, and alerts. NASA works as a research arm of the nation's space weather effort. NASA observes the Sun and our space environment constantly with a fleet of spacecraft that study everything from the Sun's activity to the solar atmosphere, and to the particles and magnetic fields in the space surrounding Earth.

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