Sun Unleashes Biggest Solar Flare in A Decade

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Sometimes very early this morning, the sun burst out two solar flares. Though the first one was sizable, it was the second of the two that made it newsworthy, as the second solar flare spotted this morning was the biggest solar flare we have seen in a decade.

Decided the current huge sunspot regions were worthy of breaking out the old trusty Earth-ograph (Earth-ometer?) to viz their spatial scale pic.twitter.com/skI52TOTiT

— Karl Battams (@SungrazerComets) September 5, 2017

The sunspot responsible for this morning’s flares, active region 2673, is the smaller of two massive spots on the sun’s surface, at only seven Earths wide by nine Earths tall, according to astrophysicist Karl Battams.

The cool end result is those sunspots may make visible auroras in the sky in places people normally can’t see them (Like Ohio and Indiana). Check outside tonight to see if your sky has been affected by today’s surprising solar outburst.