An unusual phenomenon occurred on the surface of the sun Wednesday.
“The Sun emitted a strong solar flare on June 3, peaking at 7:28 a.m. ET,” NASA, the federal body constantly watching the sun through its Solar Dynamics Observatory, said.
The observatory captured an image of the event now released to the public.
Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation, NASA said in a social media post. But the organization noted that harmful radiation from such flares cannot pass through earth’s atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground.
With enough intensity, however, such can disturb GPS and communications signals, the agency explained.
Flares and solar eruptions can impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals, and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts, NASA said.
The Wednesday flare was rated X1.0, with the X-class being the most intense, and the number providing information about the strength, beginning from 1.
NASA watches of the sun and space environment with a fleet of spacecraft studying things like the sun’s activity, the solar atmosphere, and the particles and magnetic fields in the space surrounding earth.
Read the original article on al.com. Add al.com as a Preferred Source by clicking here.