Solar Storm Alert! Sun has been in violent mood, says NASA, but Earth has escaped from danger

tech.hindustantimes.com:

The Sun has been extremely violent this week. Our illuminating star has fired off a series of horrendously large explosions into space, says NASA. Fortunately, for the Earth, these explosions have not been shot out in the direction of the Earth. If these were directed at the Earth, they may well have created the largest ever solar storms to hit our planet. The consequences for Earth would have been heavy. The Sun had fired off this massive burst of energy from its far side. NASA's STEREO-A spacecraft recorded a huge outburst of coronal mass ejection (CME) in the early hours of February 15. CMEs are giant explosions that send huge burst of energy in the form of plasma hurtling through space. If it collides with Earth, the plumes of material can trigger solar storms and these can knock out all forms of communications on Earth, satellites and even power grids. For instance, the recent solar storm destroyed a number of satellites in space. However, this week, CME was fired from the side of the Sun that faces away from our planet and hence, posed no threat

Notably, the CME eruption appeared to be one the most powerful category of which our Sun is capable, according to spaceweather.com. This horrifically large eruption has been rated as an X-class flare by NASA based on its size. Astronomer Dr Tony Phillips said: “This CME will not hit Earth; it is moving away from, not toward our planet.” He, however, added that if such a CME did strike, it could produce a very strong geomagnetic storm on Earth.

Astronomer Junwei Zhao of Stanford University’s helioseismology group told SpaceWeather.com that this was only the second far side active region of this size since September 2017 and if this eruption continues as the Sun rotates to the