The weather here on Earth seems to be somewhat calm for the moment, but we can't say the same for the Sun. On Monday evening the Sun ejected a strong solar flare. The "shock" from this solar flare is expected to arrive any time between Thursday night and midday Friday according to the Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, CO. The flare is expected to cause "strong" geomagnetic storming which is a G3 on a scale from G1 to G5. G1 being "minor" and G5 being "extreme". The flare is not expected to cause any widespread outages however some re-routing of air traffic is possible along with high frequency radio communications being affected. The SWPC did confirm that this flare was the largest of its kind since 2006. If nothing else it has been a while since I've seen the Aurora!
Image courtesy of NOAA.
How hot is the sun? My dad told me about a solar flare that happened the other day, what is a solar flare and how can it effect the earth? Oliver - age 10.
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