Watch the sun spit out a whopper X1 solar flare

The sun is in a zesty mood knowing now. Our friendly neighborhood star fired off a mainly solar flare on Thursday and a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite captured an beneficial view.

NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison tweeted two views of the flare popping off as seen in different wavelengths.

NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center paused the flare as an X1. Solar flares are measured in a dissimilarity way as earthquakes, with the biggest flares labeled as “X-class.” The smallest flares are “A-class.” Higher numbers denotes more intense flares. NASA once measured an X28 in 2003, plan an X1 is still a major flare.

Solar flares can have an crashes on Earth. “Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass throughout Earth’s atmosphere to physically affect humans on the deceptive. However, when intense enough, they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel,” NASA said in a statement on Thursday.

NASA released a view of the flare as seen by its Solar Dynamics Observatory.

NASA’s sun-watching Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this view of an X1 solar flare on Oct. 28.

NASA/SDO

Space atmosphere physicist Tamitha Skov is tracking the flare and expects the associated solar storm to arrive Earth in time for Halloween on Oct. 31. It could fuel some impressive aurora section, as we saw when a coronal mass ejection appointed us earlier this month.

It’s been a busy October for the sun, and this unexperienced outburst could add an additional festive element to Halloween as some areas of the globe may get to discover swirling, dancing auroral ghost lights in the sky. The North Dakota Dual Aurora Camera project will be keeping an eye on the potential section this weekend. It could be quite a visual treat.