Active October Sun Releases X Class Flare

Brighter than a shimmering ghost, faster than the flick of a black cats tail, the Sun cast a spell in our direction, just in time for Halloween. This imagery captured by NASAs Solar Dynamics Observatory covers a busy few days of activity between October 2528 that ended with a significant solar flare. From late afternoon October 25 through midmorning Oct. 26, an active region on the left limb of the Sun flickered with a series of small flares and petallike eruptions of solar material. Meanwhile, the Sun was sporting more active regions at its lower center, directly facing Earth. On October 28, the biggest of these released a significant flare, which peaked at 11:35 a. m. EDT. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earths atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however when intense enough they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS