A strong one occurred on Friday, February 9 at 2:10 p.m. Polish time. The source of the X-class flare was AR3575. After reaching the flare, it caused disruptions to radio communications equipment in South America, Africa and the South Atlantic, the website reports.
Class X solar flare. Disturbances occurred
Fortunately for us, the flare, classified as X3.4, occurred just as the sunspot was hiding behind the edge. Thanks to this, the flare did not hit the Earth directly.
The first X-class flare this year was accompanied by a coronal mass ejection (CME), i.e. the ejection of a cloud of plasma and magnetic field. If Earth were directly in the line of the flare, we would also experience the first geomagnetic storm of the year. It would be accompanied not only by the aurora borealis, but also by, among others, disruptions in satellite operation.
The sun is approaching its maximum
The flare of X-rays and ultraviolet radiation caused interruptions in the radio signal, even though the flare did not directly hit Earth. Radiation from this flare reached us in just over eight minutes and ionized the thermosphere – adds space.com.
The sun is approaching the most active part of its 11-year solar cycle, the so-called solar maximum. The current solar cycle began in December 2019, so it will probably last until the end of 2030, which was presented by NASA in 2022, the maximum activity should occur in July 2025. In turn, a team of scientists led by Robert Leamon from NASA and Scott McIntosh from NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric) estimates that .
Source: Gazeta
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