A single solar flare can release the equivalent energy of millions of 100-megaton atomic bombsA single solar flare can release the equivalent energy of millions of 100-megaton atomic bombs

INTERESTING FACT

Active regions are the sites of sudden and brief explosions, called solar flares, that rip through the atmosphere above sunspots with unimagined intensity. In just 100 to 1,000 seconds, the disturbance can release an energy of 1024 Joule. A single flare then creates an explosion equivalent to 2.5 million nuclear bombs on Earth, each with a destructive force of 100 Megatons of trinitrotoluene, or TNT. All of this power is created in a relatively compact explosion, comparable in total area to a sunspot, and occupying less than one ten thousandth (0.01 percent) of the Sun’s visible disk. Amazing WTF Facts

Images have been released by Nasa showing the Sun’s biggest solar flare of 2015.

NASA’s 4K View of April 17 Solar Flare

On April 17, 2016, an active region on the sun’s right side released a mid-level solar flare, captured here by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. This solar flare caused moderate radio blackouts, according to NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center. Scientists study active regions – which are areas of intense magnetism – to better understand why they sometimes erupt with such flares. This video was captured in several wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light, a type of light that is typically invisible to our eyes, but is color-coded in SDO images for easy viewing.