Two powerful ‘X-class’ solar flares erupt from the Sun

The Sun was showing off a bit over the past couple of days, producing three of its strongest solar flares so far this year.

Sunday night, at around 10 p.m. EDT, a region of the Sun just around the other side from us exploded into a magnitude X1.7 flare, which was, at the time, the strongest solar flare so far this year, and was apparently the biggest since October of last year.

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Not to leave it at that, the same region erupted into an even larger, magnitude X2.8 flare just after 12 p.m. EDT on Monday, throwing off a huge coronal mass ejection at the same time. The last time we had a solar flare bigger than this was in March of 2012.

And to top it off, another flare exploded from the region last night, at 9:11 p.m. EDT, and at magnitude X3.2, this was the biggest one of the day, and the most powerful one of the year so far.

Here's footage of the three solar flares, taken by various satellites, some of which give us a view of the other side of the Sun (normally hidden from our view):

All three of these flares were aimed away from the Earth, however, this active region of the Sun is rotating in our direction, so astronomers are closely watching this region as it swings around our way.

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The largest solar flare on record, registering at magnitude X20, was seen during the last solar maximum, on April 2nd, 2001.

Solar flares, even these powerful X-class ones, aren't particularly dangerous to us here on Earth, as the planet's magnetic field shields us against any damaging effects. There is a danger to satellites in orbit when a coronal mass ejection is aimed directly at us, though, and even power grids on the ground can be vulnerable to particularly strong ones.

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