NASA captures the most powerful solar flare released in the last 7 years

Officials at NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) confirmed on June 8 the Sun released a record-breaking solar flare that was the most intense flare released in the last seven years.

Researchers that conduct round-the-clock tracking of our local star confirmed the solar flare came from sunspot region AR3664, which was calculated to be an M9.7-class solar clare, the second strongest type on the solar flare classification scale. For those that don't know, solar flares are massive, intense bursts of electromagnetic radiation that are a result of the Sun's ever-chaging magnetic field contorting, twisting and snapping.

The blast can cause an impact on Earth, resulting in space launch's being postponed due to the charged particles hitting Earth's atmosphere and widespread radio communication blackouts. Additionally, a solar flare is typically followed by a cornal mass ejection (CME), a wave of charged particles released by the Sun that can cause geomagnetic storms.

As for the M9.7, classifications range from X, M, C, B and A, with A being the lowest and each letter jump representing a magnitude increase of 10 times in power, researchers registered it as the trong (S3) on NOAA's Space Weather Scale for Solar Radiation Storms.

The storm caused a widespread radio blackout over the northern polar region.

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