NASA captures two high-intensity solar flares

The sun emitted two high-intensity solar flares on Thursday, the second of which was the most powerful flare ever recorded in last 10 years, according to NASA.

Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. These harmful radiations can disturb the Earth's upper atmosphere where GPS and communications signals travel and were detected and captured by the US Space Agency's Solar Dynamics Observatory.

These so-called category X eruptions where X-class denotes the most intense flares, disrupted high-frequency radio communications for one hour on the Earth's side facing the sun and low-frequency communications used in navigation.

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The two eruptions occurred in an active region of the sun where an eruption of average intensity occurred on September 4. The current cycle of the sun, which began in December 2008, saw the intensity of solar activity decline sharply, opening the way to the "solar minimum". Solar cycles last on average 11 years.
(With inputs from PTI)