Aug. 24, 2015

The sun emitted a mid-level solar flare, peaking at 3:33 a.m EDT on Aug. 24, 2015. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the sun constantly, captured an image of the event. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.
To see how this event may affect Earth, please visit NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center athttp://spaceweather.gov, the U.S. government's official source for space weather forecasts, alerts, watches and warnings.
This flare is classified as an M 5.6 class flare. M-class flares are a tenth the size of the most intense flares, the X-class flares. The number provides more information about its strength. An M2 is twice as intense as an M1, an M3 is three times as intense, etc.

Image: NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a mid-level solar flare on the sun – as seen in the bright spot in the lower center of the solar disk on Aug. 24, 2015. The image shows a subset of extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the extremely hot solar material, which is typically colorized in red.