Sun Unleashes Powerful X2.2 Solar Flare Causing Temporary Blackouts

NASA image of a solar flare erupting from giant sunspot 649. HO/Getty Images

NASA detected a powerful X2.2 solar flare that erupted from the sun on Feb. 17, causing temporary blackouts in some parts of the world.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which constantly watches the sun, observed the flare—which is an intense eruption of electromagnetic radiation in the sun’s atmosphere—and said it peaked at 3:16 p.m. EST.

“This flare is classified as an X2.2 flare. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength,” NASA said.

On Twitter, the space agency shared a video of the flare, adding that there were 36 notable solar flares, 28 coronal mass ejections (CME), and no geomagnetic storms over the past week. The X-class solar flare is the most powerful kind of flare, the agency said.

According to Space Weather Live, Friday’s solar flare was the most powerful to be emitted by the sun so far in Solar Cycle 25, which began in 2019.

Radio Blackouts

Radiation from the solar flare “ionized the top of Earth’s atmosphere, causing a deep shortwave radio blackout over the Americas,” according to SpaceWeather.com. “Mariners, aviators, and ham radio operators may have noticed loss of signal and other unusual propagation effects at frequencies below 30 MHz for more than an hour after the flare.”

Solar flares are the largest explosive events in the solar system and occur when intense magnetic fields on the sun cross or become too tangled.

While they typically last only a few minutes to hours, the flares release high amounts of radiation into space.

Although they are not intense enough to impact humans on Earth, if solar flares release a high amount of radiation, they can cause disruptions to communication satellites and long-distance cables that provide the world with the internet, and in extreme cases, they can prompt power outages.

According to an alert from the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Group operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Friday’s solar flare produced a strong radio blackout, albeit temporarily, over the Americas.

Solar flares are also often accompanied by CMEs, which is when a large mass of plasma and highly magnetized particles violently eject from the sun.

Researchers Turn to Trees for More Information

Large CMEs can contain up to a billion tons of matter and can get accelerated to large fractions of the speed of light, and if in the direct path of Earth, can also cause communication and navigation disruptions.

If they do hit Earth, they can cause major geomagnetic storms resulting in stunning aurora borealis and aurora australis light shows that can be viewed on the ground, provided the skies are clear.

While X-class flares like the one seen on Friday are the most powerful type of flare, the latest one still measured relatively low on the X-scale, although scientists at NASA have said they expect the sun’s activity to ramp up toward the next predicted maximum in July 2025, meaning that more flares are likely to occur.

Currently, researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia are looking at trees for possible answers to the mysterious space weather, particularly radiation storms, also known as Miyake events or superflares.

Superflares, which happen around once every 1,000 or so years and prompt energetic spikes in Earth’s radiation level, also produce carbon-14, a radioactive isotope of carbon that is filtered out into the air, oceans, plants (including trees), and animals.

“We need to know more because if one of these happened today, it would destroy technology including satellites, internet cables, long-distance power lines, and transformers,” Benjamin Pope, the lead author of the tree study, said. “The effect on global infrastructure would be unimaginable.”