MOL NEW YORK - A monster storm on the sun’s surface has unleashed a solar flare in the direction of Earth - and there could be more to come.
The event temporarily blacked out a few radio communication systems before weakening. The storm came from a large group of sunspots and hit Earth between 10 am and 11 am EDT (2pm and 3pm BST) yesterday.
Space Weather Prediction Center forecaster Christopher Balch, meanwhile, said the flare affected radio that uses part of the upper atmosphere. That includes some but not all radar and plane systems as well as amateur radio.
Mr Balch said the storm briefly was rated as strong for affecting Earth radio systems but then dropped to minor levels. The event followed months of near-silent activity on the sun before the huge flare erupted from a sunspot 14 times bigger than Earth.
A spokesperson for the Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre told MailOnline it may be the biggest sunspot for 25 years. But they said in the UK there had been ‘no reports of any disruption at all.