Nasa captures image of fourth strong solar flare of the year

Sign up to our free weekly IndyTech newsletter delivered straight to your inbox Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy A strong solar flare has erupted from the Sun, the fourth flare of such similar intensity in 2022, but an associated stream of charged particles discharged by the Sun will likely miss the Earth. A solar flare is a powerful burst of radiation released during an eruption on the Sun’s surface that can interfere with radio communications and create problematic fluxes in electric grids, though the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center noted that if Saturday’s flare caused any radio blackouts, it was likely over the Atlantic Ocean. Solar flares are often accompanied by coronal mass ejections, plumes of charged particles and magnetic fields ejected from the Sun that can cause auroras and geomagnetic storms if they interact with Earth’s magnetic field. Noaa rates solar flare intensity based on the emission of X-rays, and Saturday’s flare was rated an X1.1 flare on is space weather scale, with X-class flares considered “strong” when ranging from X1 to X10, “severe” ranging from X10 to X20, and “extreme for flares any stronger than that.