Scientists caught a massive and extremely powerful X-class solar flare being spat out from the sun on Friday (March 28), just before the stellar eruption triggered a radio blackout across two continents.
A video captured by the GOES-16 satellite, which is jointly operated by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), shows the X-class solar flare bursting forth from a sunspot on the sun’s surface at around 11:20 a.m. EST on March 28.
This X1.1-class solar flare, which was released from a sunspot named AR4046, marks the first X-class flare the sun has released since early February.
“A strong solar flare (R3) occurred and peaked at X1.1 near 11:20am EDT (1520 UTC) on 28 March, 2025. The flare occurred from the vicinity of newly rotated into view Region 4046 near the east limb,” NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center said in a statement after the flare.
Related: Our sun may be overdue for a ‘superflare’ stronger than billions of atomic bombs, new research warns
NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center shared the spectacular video on X, formerly known as Twitter, showing the solar flare erupting from the sun alongside a cloud of solar material known as a coronal mass ejection (CME). CMEs are massive bursts of plasma and magnetic field from the sun that are ejected into space, usually during solar flares. These fast-moving blobs of plasma can cause serious disturbances to satellites and power grids if Earth happens to be in their path.
Dangerous flare-ups
Solar flares are intense bursts of electromagnetic radiation that erupt from the sun’s surface, usually from magnetically active regions like sunspots. When the sun’s magnetic fields tangle, break, and reconnect, massive amounts of energy are released in the form of light, heat, and charged particles. Solar flares are classified on a scale of A, B, C, M, and X. Each class is 10 times more powerful than the last, with X-class flares being the most powerful and least frequent.
When the radiation from a solar flare is aimed toward Earth, it can cause radio blackouts across the side of the planet facing the sun. This occurs because the solar flare’s intense X-rays…
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