Want to see a solar flare fire out of the sun? Here’s your chance.
NASA captured a solar explosion 90 million miles away a few days ago from its Solar Dynamics Observatory, which captured images of the event which it shared in video GIF.
Look closely on the right here:
What are solar flares? They’re powerful bursts of energy that can often impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals, as well as pose risks to spacecrafts and astronauts.
Watch it here:
Basically, they’re giant releases of electromagnetic radiation, which then spreads across the solar system at light speed, which is why it can disrupt so many things on earth.
In short, they are dangerous even nearly 100 million miles away.
See it even more closely below, courtesy of NASA:
This particular flare was classified as a mid-level flare, specifically an M5.5 class flare.
According to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s space weather scale that it has over at its Space Weather Prediction Centre which you can visit here, this is the second lowest measure, which could black out radio communications for “tens of minutes” on Earth as well as disrupt low-frequency navigation signals—though likely not your phone’s GPS.
Learn more here.
And here’s a gorgeous 4K video of another solar flare, courtesy of NASA:
And another that is truly stunning:
Last week an asteroid narrowly missed the earth. Find more here.
Oh, and who could forget the asteroid flew past earth and NASA didn’t notice until a day later?
Main image credit: Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio And The Solar Dynamics Observatory.