NASA Captured Solar Flare

The Solar Dynamics Observatory of NASA, caught an unusual solar flare of medium strength, on Tuesday, June 7th, and recorded it photographically.

The pictures show the Sun unleashed a flare that fell and covered an area similar to almost half of the solar surface.

“The Sun suffered on June 7th, a middle strength solar ejection (M-2) with a visually spectacular coronal mass ejection (CME). This storm has a significant amount of high energy protons above 100 megaelectronvoltios (MeV), something that had not occurred since December 2006,” the institution said in a statement.

The U.S. Weather Service reported that the explosion resulted in radiation levels not seen since 2006.

A NASA spokesman warned of possible disturbances in the activity of the GPS satellites, as well as communications and power grids.

According to the World Meteorological Organization, the sun is entering a more active phase of a cycle of 11 years, and would peak in 2013.

Source: AFP, Reuters