Monster Flare Explodes From the Sun With Energy of Millions of H-Bombs

A significant flare exploded from the Sun on March 11, 2015, peaking at 12:22 p.m. EDT. The action was observed by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite. (Source: NASA SDO/Helioviewer.org) The first monster solar flare of the year exploded from the Sun today, causing disruption to radio communications here on Earth for a time. It packed the energy of millions of hydrogen bombs exploding simultaneously. To be fair, that kind of energy release is typical of solar flares in general. But this one was an X-class flare — the most powerful category. If you doubt that they can be that powerful, have a look at the image above. It's a screenshot of a video I created using data from the Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite. Check out the blindingly bright spot. That's the flare, frozen in action. Now, check out the image of the Earth at the lower left corner, included for scale. Humbling, yes? Also make sure to click the video to watch it. (It covers a time period of about six hours.) I've also included other views below. But first, some details about flares and what happened today: Solar flares occur when pent up magnetic energy in the Sun's atmosphere is suddenly and rapidly released, spewing out radiation across almost the entire electromagnetic spectrum, along with a spray of particles. Radiation travels at the speed of light, so if a flare is powerful enough and the Sun is facing Earth, it can reach us in about eight minutes. Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere protect us here on the ground. But the radiation can disrupt radio communications. That's exactly what happened today: