Sun Produces First Cycle 24 X-Class Solar Flare

radioweather writes "For the first time since solar cycle 24 began, the sun produced a massive X-class solar flare, the strongest type of flare event. This comes from sunspot group 1158, which produced an M-class solar flare on Sunday. The EVE X-ray imager on the solar dynamics observatory shows a bright explosion on the sun, so bright it made a lens flare. The last X-class solar flare was on December 13th, 2006 and was part of solar cycle 23. Look for spectacular auroras in a couple days as the slower Coronal Mass Ejection hits earth. This will be a test of how well our newest technology handles stray energy from such solar disruptions."

Comments

Lens flare?

[atomicthumbs]

That's not a lens flare, that's a CCD artifact caused by the intensity of the light (X-rays, in this case) saturating the CCD sensor, and leaving that column saturated as it's moved across the sensor to be read out.
Read up.

All joking aside...

[ATestR]

The significance of this solar flare is not that it could or will be a danger to Earth... it is that is a sign that the sun is waking back up. Anyone who has been watching for long can tell you that there haven't been any significant sun spots for quite a while. It is possible that this is the reason behind some of the cold weather that the northern hemisphere has been experiencing this winter.