The sun emitted a powerful solar flare on Oct. 3, according to NASA, prompting the Space Weather Prediction Center to issue a Geomagnetic Storm Watch due to the forecasted arrival of coronal mass ejections.
NASA stated that its Solar Dynamics Observatory, which constantly monitors the sun, captured the flare on Thursday morning. This was the second intense flare this year and the most powerful since 2017.
Solar flares are bursts of energy that can last from several minutes to a few hours, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
They occur when the powerful magnetic fields in and around the sun reconnect and are usually associated with active regions, often visible as sunspots, where the magnetic fields are strongest, according to NASA….