NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare – as seen in the bright flash on the top right area of the sun – on Sunday.
(NASA/SDO)
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The largest explosive events in our solar system, solar flares are intense bursts of radiation that come from the release of magnetic energy associated with sunspots.
They appear as bright areas on the sun and vary in duration, lasting from minutes to hours.
According to NASA, the most powerful solar flares have the energy equivalent of a billion hydrogen bombs. Light takes only about 8 minutes to travel to the Earth from the sun, so that’s how long it takes for the energy from a flare to reach us. Of course, solar flares only affect the Earth if they occur on the side of the sun facing us. Some of the impacts they can have are on radio communications, electric power grids and navigation signals. They can also pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts.
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