Sun Unleashes Major Solar Flare: Registers as an X1.7-class Solar Event

With the premier of American Blackout hitting living rooms this weekend, many think the possibility of an event so massive that it takes down our power grid is nothing but Hollywood propaganda.

The reality is starkly different.

The sun erupted with one of the strongest solar flares it can unleash early Friday (Oct. 25), just days after firing off an intense solar storm at Earth.

The major solar flare, which registered as an X1.7-class solar event on the space weather scale, peaked at 4:01 a.m. EDT (0801 GMT), according to an alert by the NOAA-run Space Weather Prediction Center. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured video of the X1.7 solar flare, which followed several smaller sun storms over the last few days.

Earlier this week, an M-Class solar flare directed at earth caused a radio blackout on the sunlit side of Earth.

The X-Class flare detected today will likely not cause issues as scientists indicate it is not earth directed. However, with sun activity seemingly heating up, the  possibility of even more powerful flares, some of which may be directed at Earth, is certainly out there.

The most powerful flare ever detected by modern instruments was emitted by the sun in November of 2003 and initially measured in at X-20. It was later revised upwards to an X-50+ flare. It narrowly missed earth, but had it struck, would have been what many refer to as a Solar Killshot, an event that would likely have knocked out modern electronic systems across the entire globe.

Video of the latest x1.7-class solar event: