Sun Unleashes X-class Flare

A giant cloud of solar particles, called a coronal mass ejection, explodes off the sun on Jan. 7, 2014, as seen in the light halo to the lower right in this image captured by ESA/NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. The sun is obscured to better see the tenuous atmosphere around it.

The Jan. 7, 2014, X-class flare was also associated with a coronal mass ejection, or CME, another solar phenomenon that can send billions of tons of particles into space that can reach Earth one to three days later. These particles cannot travel through the atmosphere to harm humans on Earth, but they can affect electronic systems in satellites and on the ground.
The European Space Agency and NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO, captured an image of the giant particle cloud as it burst away from the sun.
To see how this event may impact Earth, please visit NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center at http://spaceweather.gov, the U.S. government's official source for space weather forecasts, alerts, watches and warnings.
Updates will be provided as needed.
The sun emitted a significant solar flare peaking at 1:32 p.m. EST on Jan.7, 2014. This is the first significant flare of 2014, and follows on the heels of mid-level flare earlier in the day. Each flare was centered over a different area of a large sunspot group currently situated at the center of the sun, about half way through its 14-day journey across the front of the disk along with the rotation of the sun.
Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel. This disrupts the radio signals for as long as the flare is ongoing, anywhere from minutes to hours.
To see how this event may impact Earth, please visit NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center at http://spaceweather.gov, the U.S. government's official source for space weather forecasts, alerts, watches and warnings.
This flare is classified as an X1.2-class flare. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength. An X2 is twice as intense as an X1, an X3 is three times as intense, etc.
Updates will be provided as needed.

This labeled image taken by SDO's Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager shows the location of two active regions on the sun, labeled AR1944 and AR1943, which straddle a giant sunspot complex. A Jan. 17, 2014, X1.2-class flare emanated from an area closer to AR1943.

This pictures combines two images from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured on Jan. 7, 2013. Together, the images show the location of a giant sunspot group on the sun, and the position of an X-class flare that erupted at 1:32 p.m. EST.