Terrifying solar flare sparks BLACKOUTS in US, Canada; NASA satellite spots blast
Earlier, it was reported that solar winds were expected to hit the Earth today, June 21, but so far, it has not reached our planet. However, a bigger threat struck the Earth in the late hours last night when a powerful solar flare explosion occurred on the Sun. The X-class solar flare eruption took place on a new sunspot named AR3341, and the impact of the flare was so strong that it sparked shortwave radio blackouts over the North American continent, including major parts of the USA and Canada. Further, a coronal mass ejection (CME) cloud was also seen escaping, which has the researchers worried.
According to a report by SpaceWeather.com, “New sunspot AR3341 erupted on June 20th, producing an X1.1-class solar flare. Radiation from the flare ionized the top of Earth's atmosphere. This caused a deep shortwave radio blackout over North America”. The report also mentioned that aviators and amateur radio operators could have noticed a loss of signal “at frequencies below 30 MHz for as much as 20 minutes after the flare”.
The most concerning part about the solar flare eruption is the presence of a CME, which was also confirmed by the report. NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) detected a “bright and fast” CME leaving the blast site. Early predictions state that the Earth may not be in its strike zone, however, nothing can be said for certain till NOAA prediction models arrive.
The CME from the X-class solar flare has been classified as Type II solar radio emission and these are strong enough to even bring G5-class geomagnetic storms to Earth. These are powerful enough to not only disrupt GPS, wireless communications, and radio waves but also damage power grids and sensitive electronics such as pacemakers and
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