This stupendous solar flare is one for the record books.
The X-class flare erupted from the sun's surface on March 29, 2014, and NASA scientists say it's the best-observed flare of all time. Just watch the NASA Goddard YouTube video above for all the details.
X-class flares are the strongest kind. This one was observed by four separate NASA space telescopes and one ground-based observatory. Each telescope captured a different aspect of the flare, producing images that will help researchers better understand what triggers flares and how they can cause radio blackouts on Earth.
The March 29, 2014, X-class flare appears as a bright light on the sun, showing light in the 304 Angstrom wavelength.
"This is the most comprehensive data set ever collected by NASA's Heliophysics Systems Observatory," Jonathan Cirtain, a project scientist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., said in a written statement. "Some of the spacecraft observe the whole sun all the time, but three of the observatories had coordinated in advance to focus on a specific active region of the sun. We need at least a day to program in observation time and the target -- so it was extremely fortunate that we caught this X-class flare." Reported by Huffington Post 5 hours ago.
The X-class flare erupted from the sun's surface on March 29, 2014, and NASA scientists say it's the best-observed flare of all time. Just watch the NASA Goddard YouTube video above for all the details.
X-class flares are the strongest kind. This one was observed by four separate NASA space telescopes and one ground-based observatory. Each telescope captured a different aspect of the flare, producing images that will help researchers better understand what triggers flares and how they can cause radio blackouts on Earth.
The March 29, 2014, X-class flare appears as a bright light on the sun, showing light in the 304 Angstrom wavelength.
"This is the most comprehensive data set ever collected by NASA's Heliophysics Systems Observatory," Jonathan Cirtain, a project scientist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., said in a written statement. "Some of the spacecraft observe the whole sun all the time, but three of the observatories had coordinated in advance to focus on a specific active region of the sun. We need at least a day to program in observation time and the target -- so it was extremely fortunate that we caught this X-class flare." Reported by Huffington Post 5 hours ago.