On August 9th at 0805 UT, sunspot 1263 produced an X7-class solar flare–only the third X-flare of new Solar Cycle 24 and the most powerful so far. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the explosion’s extreme ultraviolet flash:
The brunt of the explosion was not Earth directed. Nevertheless, radiation from the flare created waves of ionization in Earth’s upper atmosphere, briefly disrupting communications at some VLF and HF radio frequencies. The blast also accelerated a mild torrent of protons toward Earth; they can be seen speckling the images in this SOHO movie of a CME emerging from the blast site. The CME will probably miss Earth. At this time, however, we cannot rule out a glancing blow from the flank of the cloud on August 11th or 12th. Stay tuned for additional analysis. Solar flare alerts: text, voice.
X-flares of Solar Cycle 24: Feb. 15, 2011 (X2), March 9, 2011 (X1), Aug. 9, 2011 (X7). Before these three, the previous X-flare occured on Dec.14, 2006, (X1) during old Solar Cycle 23.
