The sun fired off a major solar flare late Tuesday, making it the most powerful sun eruption of the year so far and one of the strongest in recent years.
The massive X4.9-class solar flare erupted from an active sunspot, called AR1990, at 7:49 p.m. EST. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured high-definition video of the monster solar flare
. The spaceecraft recording amazing views the solar flare erupting with a giant burst of plasma, called a coronal mass ejection, or CME.
Earth isn’t in danger from the latest eruption of space weather activity, according to officials with Spaceweather.com, which tracks space weather and stargazing events. Sunspot AR1990 (previously named AR1967) is located on the southeastern limb of the sun, pointed away from Earth. This is the third time this sunspot has rotated onto the Earth-facing side of the sun. [Photos: The Biggest Solar Flares of 2014]
“Long-lived sunspot AR1967 returned to the Earthside of the sun on Feb. 25th and promptly erupted, producing an X4.9-class solar flare,” astronomer Tony Phillips wrote in a Spaceweather.com alert. “This is the strongest flare of the year so far and one of the strongest of the current solar cycle.”
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