NASA spots solar explosion with the potential to cause radio blackouts on Earth

NASA has caught sight of an explosion more than 100 million km from Earth.

The explosion was a solar flare — a powerful burst of energy on the sun— that was caught by Nasa’s sun-observing Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) on January 20.

Nasa’s Solar Dynamics Observatory watches the sun constantly and captured an image of the event. The images show the solar flare as a bright flash on the right side of the sun.

Solar flares and eruptions can impact radio communications, electric power grids and navigation signals on Earth. They can also pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts.

This flare is classified as an M5.5 class flare, by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) ‘space weather scale’, which is considered to be of moderate strength.

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