Monster Solar Flare Spares Earth, for Now

The sun fired off a major solar flare late Feb. 24, 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 spacecraft 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 Read more...