Ten powerful solar flares erupt from Sun over past day

Scientists detected ten powerful solar flares that erupted from the Sun over the past day, the Institute of Applied Geophysics said, APA reports citing TASS.

The first flare, ranked as category M1.3 flare, was detected at 12:48 a.m. Moscow time on Tuesday (9:48 p.m. Monday GMT), lasting 30 minutes. The last one, which occurred at 7:30 p.m. Moscow time (4:30 p.m. GMT), was also the most powerful of them all. Ranked as category M8.2, the flare continued for 15 minutes.

Some of those flares disrupted radio communications on the short wave.

Over the past few weeks, scientists have registered four solar flares of the highest X class (X1.7, X4.5 and two X1.3) and a large number of less powerful M-class flares.

Solar flares are divided into five classes according to their X-ray strength: the smallest ones are A-class, followed by B, C, M and X. A0.0 class is equal to the radiation energy found in the Earth’s orbit, 10 nanowatts per square meter. Each letter stands for a 10-fold increase in energy output. As a rule, the flares, known as giant explosions on the sun, send solar plasma into space, and the clouds of these charged particles can bring about geomagnetic storms when reaching the Earth.