• OUR Sun has sent forth seven flares in seven days. One is headed our way.
• One, unleashed last week, was the solar equivalent of Hurricane Irma – a monster X9.3 storm.
• Even though it only struck Earth a glancing blow, this was enough to disrupt some radio communications.
• Since then, the same cauldron of magnetic activity on the Sun’s surface has erupted with flare after flare.
• Another big one, at magnitude X8.2, was blasted outwards overnight. It’s arriving soon.
• An X8.2 class solar flare flashes in the edge of the Sun on September 10, 2017. 
• This image was captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory and shows a blend of light from the 171 and 335 angstrom wavelengths. 
• An X8.2 class solar flare flashes in the edge of the Sun on September 10, 2017. 
• What makes these flares so significant is that the explosions have been strong enough to tear pieces of the Sun away from itself, and fling it into space.
• It’s called a coronal mass ejection (CME), and – depending on its strength – if one was to hit Earth the effects could range from an annoyance to catastrophic.
• The latest warning from the Space Weather Prediction Center is that the latest flare could cause a moderate disruption radio communications over North and South America for up to an hour tonight.
• While the Earth’s atmosphere protects those of us on the surface from the most harmful rays, things get different the higher up you go.
• The Sun is supposed to be approaching solar minimum – a period where hardly a ripple marks its surface.
• But observations over the centuries have shown that when a solar ‘hot spot’ does emerge at this time, it tends to be very hot. It’s times like these that have produced some of the biggest solar flares recorded.
• The X9.3 flare was the largest flare so far in the current solar cycle, the approximately 11-year-cycle during which the sun’s activity waxes and wanes.
• The current solar cycle began in December 2008, and is now decreasing in intensity and heading toward solar minimum. This is a phase when such eruptions on the sun are increasingly rare, but history has shown that they can nonetheless be intense.

  Solar Flare: Know More

• The first impact from a solar flare comes from charged particles travelling at 150,000,000km/h. 
  These arrive at Earth about an hour after an eruption.
• But the bulk of the material spewed forth by a CME can take a couple of days to reach our planet – giving us time to prepare.
• Solar flares can be a serious threat.
• The biggest blobs of energy – if they were to strike Earth full-on – charge the ionosphere, causing it to absorb radio waves.
• This could cut communications with everything from airliners to satellites – including GPS signals.
• Radiation levels in space would also spike, posing a health risk to astronauts aboard the International Space Station and even airline passengers.
• The most severe geomagnetic storms could pump unwanted electrical current into power lines, and even electrical devices.
• These have been known to fry electrical networks, blacking out entire cities and states.

Blackouts From Solar Flares

• In 1989, the entire Canadian state of Quebec was blacked out for nine hours after a direct hit from a coronal mass ejection.
• Another 200 power grids in the United States experienced surges.
• The worst was in 1859, when electricity was only beginning to be used in telegraph wires. These failed worldwide.
• A similar hit, now, could be an electronics apocalypse – taking out power networks and destroying electronic systems such as banking transactions.
• It would be a worldwide disaster, with transportation and food production networks crippled.
• The current solar hotspot, dubbed Active Region 2673, was first spotted on August 29.
• This flare is likely to be the last to have any impact on Earth as the region is rotating towards the Sun’s far side.