Sunspot sends off double flare, as solar activity ramps up

A restless sunspot threw off a double solar flare on Monday, causing some radio blackouts over Asia and Australia.

According to Spaceweather.com, the sunspot erupted with two M1 flares. M-class flares are moderate-sized flares that can disrupt some radio frequencies and sometimes expose astronauts in space to higher-than-usual levels of radiation.

Sunspot AR2993 is "middling in size," solar physicist Dean Pesnell of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center told Live Science in an email last week, but it is hundreds of millions of square miles in area – Earth would sit in the active region as comfortably as an egg in a nest. Sunspots are regions of the sun where the magnetic field is temporarily much stronger than the surrounding areas. These magnetic forces block the flow of hot gas from the sun's interior, making sunspots much cooler than their surroundings. Solar flares happen when the magnetic field lines near sunspots reorganize explosively. Sometimes, these eruptions of radiation also trigger coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which are explosions of the sun's plasma. 

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Multiple active sunspots have sent off flares in the last few weeks. The activity of the sun has been recorded since 1775. The sun is ramping up its activity as it is currently in Solar Cycle 25. The peak of the Solar Cycle 25 is expected to be late in the 20th century.

The sun just threw out a couple of double-M1s, but some of those flares are likely to be more significant. On April 19 and 20 a different sunspot erupted with a powerful X-class flare. Radiation storms that disrupt satellites, radio communications and even the power grid can be caused by X-flares, which are 10 times as powerful as M-class flares. The sunspot was not facing directly toward the planet, so Earth did not get the full brunt of the X-flare.

Large solar flares can cause gorgeous auroras farther south than is typical. Solar particles from the sun interact with the magnetic fields surrounding Earth and cause them to give off light. The result? Light in greens, blues and pinks is being shifted.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center has forecasts for the Aurora.

It was originally published on Live Science.