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An active region just turning into view on the left side of the Sun has emitted three large flares since Saturday: an M9, an M5 and early today blasted out an X1.8 class flare. This flare occurred around 3:17 am UTC today (or 11:17 pm EDT on Oct. 22). The strobe-light-like effect visible in the video was created by the brightness of the flare and the Solar Dynamics Observatory instruments? response to that brightness. On Earth, an X-class flare of this intensity can cause degradation or blackouts of radio communications for about an hour. However, this flare was not associated with a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), so nothing is heading our way. The same region, named AR 1598 has put out a few slow CMEs, but so far nothing towards Earth.
An image from the Solar Dynamics Observatory during the X-class flare event on Oct. 23, 2012 (UTC). Credit: NASA/SDO
Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth?s atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, but flares like this can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel, sometimes causing disruptions in communications.
The SDO Twitter feed said there is a whopping 75% chance of more M-class solar flares from this active region and a 20% chance of additional X-class flares.
This is the 7th X-class flare in 2012 with the largest being an X5.4 flare on March 7.
By observing the sun in a number of different wavelengths, NASA?s telescopes can tease out different aspects of events on the sun. These four images of a solar flare on Oct. 22, 2012, show from the top left, and moving clockwise: light from the sun in the 171 Angstrom wavelength, which shows the structure of loops of solar material in the sun?s atmosphere, the corona; light in 335 Angstroms, which highlights light from active regions in the corona; a magnetogram, which shows magnetically active regions on the sun; light in the 304 Angstrom wavelength, which shows light from the region of the sun?s atmosphere where flares originate. (Credit: NASA/SDO/Goddard)
Source: http://www.universetoday.com/98149/disco-sun-x-class-flare-creates-strobe-light-effect/
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Public release date: 22-Oct-2012
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