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During the time that terrestrial shortwave
transmissions were blacked out, the sun filled in
the gap with a loud radio burst of its own. In New
Mexico, amateur radio astronomer Thomas Ashcraft
recorded the sounds. "This
radio burst was a strong one and might be too
intense for headphones," cautions Ashcraft.
Solar radio bursts are caused by strong
shock waves moving through the sun's atmosphere.
(Electrons accelerated by the shock front excite
plasma instabilities which, in turn, produce shortwave
static.) They are usually a sign that a CME is emerging
from the blast site--and indeed this flare produced
a very
bright CME.
Solar flare alerts:
text,
voice.
Angry sun spits two million-mph tongues of fire
Click on picture to watch video
The sun erupted with two of the strongest solar flares it can unleash Friday, just days after blasting an intense solar storm at Earth.
The sun erupted with two of the strongest solar flares it can unleash Friday, just days after blasting an intense solar storm at Earth.
The sun fired off a flare that registered at X1.7 on the space weather scale at 4:01 a.m. EDT (0801 GMT) Friday, then followed with an X.2-class event at 11:07 a.m. EDT (1507 GMT). NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured video of the X1.7 solar flare, which came after several smaller sun storms over the last few days.
Both powerful flares erupted from a new sunspot cluster called Region 1882 and sparked temporary radio blackouts, officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) said in an update. But neither eruption is likely to spark major geomagnetic storms in Earth's magnetic field, they added.
