Sun Releases Strong Solar Flare

The Sun emitted a strong solar flare, peaking at 11:57 p.m. ET on Oct. 23, 2024. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the Sun constantly, captured an image of the event.

A portion of the Sun fills the center, most of the top, and right side of the image. The left of the image is black. The Sun is dark orange with bright yellow areas. From a very bright yellow area, solar material bursts off the Sun, into the area of black space. — NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare — seen as the bright flash on the left — on Oct. 23, 2024. The image shows a subset of extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the extremely hot material in flares and which is colorized in orange. Credit: NASA/SDO

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 an X3.3 class flare. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength.

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.