Humongous solar flare erupts in our direction (+video)

The strongest solar storm of the summer so far could send a wave of charged particles toward our planet that could supercharge northern lights displays, NASA scientists say.

By Tariq Malik,?Space.com / July 12, 2012

An X1.4 class flare erupted from the center of the sun, peaking Thursday at 12:52 PM EDT.

NASA/SDO/AIA

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The sun unleashed a huge flare Thursday (July 12), the second major solar storm to erupt from our star in less than a week.

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The solar flare peaked at 12:52 p.m. EDT (1652 GMT) as an X-class sun storm, the most powerful type of flare the sun?can have.

"It erupted from Active Region 1520, which rotated into view on July 6," NASA officials said in an alert. Active Region 1520, or AR1520, is a giant sunspot currently facing Earth. ?

According to NASA and the Space Weather Prediction Center (SPWC), which is operated by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, today's sun storm registered as an X1.4-class solar flare. It is more powerful than the?X1.1 flare that erupted on July 6?from another giant sunspot known as AR1515, making this latest tempest the strongest solar storm of the summer so far.

NASA scientists said the flare-spitting sunspot group AR1520 is substantially larger than last week's sunspot AR1515, which was 118,681 miles (191,000 kilometers) long. Sunspot group AR1520 is about 50 percent larger than AR1515, they added.

But while sunspot AR1520 sounds like a solar behemoth, it is actually a relatively modest sunspot example, and promises more sun storms to come, Dean Pesnell, project scientist for NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, told SPACE.com. [Photos of Huge Sunspot AR1520]

"It's certainly not done. It's only halfway across the face of the sun right now," Pesnell said from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., which oversees the sun-watching SDO mission. "We'll be able to watch it from the Earth for at least another week."

The SDO spacecraft captured a video of the huge X1.4 solar flare and is one of several spacecraft keeping a constant watch on the sun's weather cycle.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/kuSglSe_BJU/Humongous-solar-flare-erupts-in-our-direction-video

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