Videos and pictures captured by NASA show a powerful solar flare that was released by the sun last Thursday, producing conditions that allowed many people across the United States and the United Kingdom to witness the Northern Lights.
According to The Daily Mail, Thursday’s solar flare was the largest solar flare witnessed in the past seven years. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, NASA Sun & Space shared a picture of the solar flare, tweeting, “The Sun emitted a strong solar flare on Oct. 3, 2024, peaking at 8:18 a.m. ET. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured an image of the event, which was classified as X9.0.”
In a post on its website, NASA explained that solar flares are “powerful bursts of energy.” NASA warned that solar flares can cause issues with electric power grids, radio communications, and navigation signals and can present risks to astronauts and spacecraft. NASA also noted that the solar flare’s designation as an “X-class” flare indicates that it belongs to the “most intense” flare category.
NASA Sun & Space also shared a video of Thursday’s solar flare alongside the caption, “Here’s another view of today’s X9-class solar flare, the most powerful of this solar cycle, featuring two different wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light captured by NASA'[s] Solar Dynamics Observatory.”
The Daily Mail reported that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) said that Thursday’s solar flare would result in the Northern Lights being visible in states such as New York, Indiana, and Nebraska.
Silvia Dalla, a solar physics professor, noted, “Solar flares and fast coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are large expulsions of plasma and magnetic fields. This strong geomagnetic activity results in breath-taking displays of the Northern Lights.”
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In a post on social media, TDS Weather shared that Thursday’s solar flare was the “15th strongest solar flare on record” and that the solar flare would “produce highly visible Northern Lights (auroras’) Friday night into Saturday morning.”
According to The Daily Mail, Dr. Steph Yardley, a Northumbria University space scientist, noted that the region of the sun that has been producing solar flares has been “quite active over the past few days” and that another “solar eruption” had been witnessed on October 1.
“Both eruptions associated with the strong flares are Earth-directed and we expect them to impact us sometime between October 4-6, meaning auroras might be visible in Scotland and North England during this period,” Yardley said.
A picture of the sky above Stonehenge following Thursday’s solar flare was shared Monday on X.
