Solar Flare Ionizes European Skies
Obviously frustrated by the headline-grabbing news of a quasi-potential Higgs boson discovery, the sun exploded with a headline-grabber of its own this morning.
At 10:52 UT, active region 1515 (AR1515) unleashed a M5.6-class solar flare bathing the Earth’s atmosphere with X-ray and extreme ultraviolet radiation. At that energy, the flare wasn’t that far from becoming an X-class flare — the most powerful variety of solar eruption.