A powerful solar flare is headed toward Earth, which could cause radio blackouts.
A space weather physicist tweeted that the Sun just let out a huge solar flare, which could cause radio blackouts in many parts of the world.
Now that the Sun is in an active part of its 11-year cycle, more things like this are likely to happen. Earlier this week, astronomers were keeping an eye on sunspot AR3038 to see if it was going to do anything. But AR3058 is a new region that erupted early and has a chance of producing an X-class flare.
How bad can flares from the sun get?
Solar flares are powerful, localized explosions of electromagnetic energy on the sun's surface. Solar flares are put into classes A, B, C, M, and X based on how strong they are. Class A flares are the weakest, while class X flares are the strongest.
When these flares go off, they release intense bursts o...