Extreme Solar Flares
From NASA s Scientific Visualization Studio. Solar flares may seem like faraway events, but they can damage satellites and even groundbased technologies and power grids. Every 11 years, as the sun reaches its maximum activity they become bigger and more common, and that increases the chances that one will significantly affect Earth. So what are these solar eruptions A solar flare is basically an explosion on the surface of the sun ranging from minutes to hours in length. Large flares can release enough energy to power the entire United States for a million years. Flares happen when the powerful magnetic fields in and around the sun reconnect. They re usually associated with active regions, often seen as sunspots, where the magnetic fields are strongest. Flares are classified according to their strength. The smallest ones are Bclass, followed by C, M and X, the largest. Similar to the Richter scale for earthquakes, each letter represents a tenfold increase in energy output. So an X
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