Mark Turner's Mysterious World: X Class Solar Flare Causes Radio Blackout, Potentially Harmful CME Misses Earth (VIDEO)

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory sees an X-class flare exploding off the right side of the sun. These three views of the X1.4 flare are in 131, 304 and 171 angstrom. Image Credit: NASA/SDO/Goddard Space Flight Center

Mark Turner
Mysterious World
4/25/2014

A solar flare, lasting for two hours, erupted on Thursday, April 24th at around 8:27 PM EDT (2014) that caused a blackout in the HF shortwave radio band on the day side of earth for nearly an hour, this region was located around the Pacific Ocean and Eastern Pacific Rim. This is described as an X1.3 solar flare. The frightening part is that a coronal mass ejection (CME) was also released but it missed the earth. It was alarming enough that NASA mentioned its possiable harmful effects in an on-line report.

Official NASA report on the solar flare

"Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel."

"This flare is classified as an X1.4 flare. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength. An X2 is twice as intense as an X1, an X3 is three times as intense, etc."

From Mother Nature Network:

"When aimed directly at Earth, X-class solar flares can endanger to astronauts in space, as well as interfere with communications and navigation satellites in orbit. The most powerful X-class flares can also affect power grids and other infrastructure on the Earth."