Published on March 5th, 2012 | by James Johnson
1Sunspot Shoots Solar Storm Towards Earth. Don’t Worry It’s Not End Of Days
Two gigantic bursts of charged particles were shot into space and towards Earth on Sunday from a sunspot on the suns surface.
The first and larger (X1.1-class eruption) of the two solar storms erupted from sunspot AR 1429 at 11:13 p.m. EST on Sunday night, March 4 but NASA says that larger explosion will miss Earth.
The small blast erupted at 5:49 a.m. EST and will give Earth a little blow on Monday night.
NASA is still collecting data from the “coronal mass ejections” to determine exactly how many solar flares were sent in Earth’s direction and into space in general.
According to Wired:
In terms of energy, the larger burst is an X1.1-class eruption — among thestrongest measured by astronomers. A direct hit by an X-class storm can cause radio blackouts, cripple satellites and heat wires. Thankfully, the current space forecast suggests the burst should miss Earth.
The Space Weather Prediction Center only expected a minor radiation storm tonight from the M2.0-class blast.
Also impacted will be Mercury, Venus and Mars.
In the meantime we should expect more solar blasts headed towards Earth throughout 2012 as the sun reaches the solar maximum, an event that occurs in 11-year cycles as the sun’s magnetic fields become more contorted.
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