Active October Sun Emits X-class Flare

  • Released Thursday, October 28, 2021
View full credits

Brighter than a shimmering ghost, faster than the flick of a black cat’s tail, the Sun cast a spell in our direction, just in time for Halloween. This imagery captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory covers a busy few days of activity between Oct. 25-28 that ended with a significant solar flare.

From late afternoon Oct. 25 through mid-morning Oct. 26, an active region on the left limb of the Sun flickered with a series of small flares and petal-like eruptions of solar material.

Meanwhile, the Sun was sporting more active regions at its lower center, directly facing Earth. On Oct. 28, the biggest of these released a significant flare, which peaked at 11:35 a.m. EDT.

Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO

Music: "Immersion" from Above and Below. Written and produced by Lars Leonhard

Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.

Complete transcript available.

The Sun emitted a significant solar flare peaking at 11:35 a.m. EDT on Oct. 28, 2021. 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 such space weather may affect Earth, please visit NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center http://spaceweather.gov/, the U.S. government’s official source for space weather forecasts, watches, warnings, and alerts. NASA works as the research arm of the nation’s space weather effort. NASA observes the Sun and our space environment constantly with a fleet of spacecraft that study everything from the Sun’s activity to the solar atmosphere, and to the particles and magnetic fields in the space surrounding Earth.

This flare is classified as an X1.0-class flare.

X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength. An X2 is twice as intense as an X1, an X3 is three times as intense, etc. Flares that are classified X10 or stronger are considered unusually intense.

Earlier in the week, from late-afternoon on October 25th through mid-morning on the 26th, a different active region on the Sun gave a show of small flares and eruptions of plasma.

An X1.0 class solar flare flashes in center of the Sun on Oct. 28, 2021. This image was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory and shows a blend of light from the 171 and 304 angstrom wavelengths.Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO

An X1.0 class solar flare flashes in center of the Sun on Oct. 28, 2021. This image was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory and shows a blend of light from the 171 and 304 angstrom wavelengths.

Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare — as seen in the bright flash at the Sun’s lower center — on Oct. 28, 2021. The image shows a subset of extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the extremely hot material in flares and which is colorized here in teal.Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare — as seen in the bright flash at the Sun’s lower center — on Oct. 28, 2021. The image shows a subset of extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the extremely hot material in flares and which is colorized here in teal.

Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO

Activity on the edge of the Sun on Oct. 25, 2021. This image was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory and shows a blend of light from the 171 and 304 angstrom wavelengths.Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO

Activity on the edge of the Sun on Oct. 25, 2021. This image was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory and shows a blend of light from the 171 and 304 angstrom wavelengths.

Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO

Footage of the October 25-26th activity captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory in extreme ultraviolet light (171 angstrom wavelength)

Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO

Footage of the October 25-26th activity captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory in extreme ultraviolet light (171 angstrom wavelength). The footage is rotated to show more of the activity in a widescreen format.

Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO

Footage of the October 25-26th activity captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory in extreme ultraviolet light (171 angstrom wavelength). Full-disk 4k version.

Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO

Original 4k frames and video. Missing frames appear in the video as red frames.

Footage of the October 25-26th activity captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory in extreme ultraviolet light (171 angstrom wavelength). Full-disk 4k version. Frames available.

Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO

Original 4096x4096 frames and video of the October 28th X1 flare captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory in extreme ultraviolet light (131 angstrom wavelength).

Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO

Original 4096x4096 frames and video of the October 28th X1 flare captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory in extreme ultraviolet light (171 angstrom wavelength).

Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO

Original 4096x4096 frames and video of the October 28th X1 flare captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory in extreme ultraviolet light (304 angstrom wavelength).

Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO

For More Information

See https://blogs.nasa.gov/solarcycle25/?p=41

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. However, individual items should be credited as indicated above.

This page was originally published on Thursday, October 28, 2021.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:43 PM EDT.

Missions

This visualization is related to the following missions:

Series

This visualization can be found in the following series:

Datasets used in this visualization

Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.