X-Class Monster Flare (Photo : www.techtimes.com)
The sun has unleashed its first super flare of the year, March 11, Wednesday. Space weather experts say that it directly aimed at Earth.
The strongest monster X-class solar flare, which has been categorized as a sun storm, peaked at 12:22 EDT on Wednesday. It originated from a sunspot that is known as the Active 12297 Region. The Solar Dynamics Observatory of NASA was able to capture its video, the Space revealed.
AR 12297 has fired-off several medium-strength flares over the week. The scientists at the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center in Colorado announced that the event that occurred on Wednesday brought things a notch higher, causing an hour-long, high-frequency radio communications blackout over wide areas.
"An R3 (Strong) Radio Blackout peaked at 1622 UTC (12:22pm EDT) today, March 11. This is yet another significant solar flare from Active Region 12297 as it marches across the solar disk. This is the largest flare the region has produced so far, after producing a slew of R1 (Minor) and R2 (Moderate) Radio Blackouts over the past few days," the SWPC officials wrote.
The super-powerful flare on Wednesday was registered as a "X2.2 sun storm" with the use of the scale that measures solar tempests. Scientists have classified strong solar flares into three categories: X, M, and C with the last being the weakest, M- mid level, and X the strongest. X flares are 10 times more powerful than those that belong to category M. X3 and X2 flares are thrice and twice times as potent, respectively, than X1 flares.
