While most of us in the northern hemisphere celebrated summer solstice with our feet planted firmly on the ground, it looks like the sun had its own party 93 million miles away. Our parent star unleashed some fireworks of its own in the form of a solar flare.
The flare, a relatively subdued outburst, erupted at 11:15 p.m. EDT Thursday, just hours before the official solstice occurred. NASA classified the flare as an M2, which translate to "not very strong."
The M2 solar flare ended up spitting out a large quantity of star material in a phenomenon known as a coronal mass ejection (CME) directed straight at Earth. The CME blasted off from the sun at a speed of 1,350 miles per second, which according to NASA, is incredibly fast, even for a CME.
The particles from the CME will not directly affect life here on our planet, as our atmosphere blocks most of the ejection, but there is a possibility that electronics and communication systems could be affected. This is due to the fact that the magnetically-charged particles from the CME can cause a geomagnetic storm in our planet's magnetosphere, the Earth's magnetic envelope.
The solstice-driven CME is not expected to disrupt any systems, although operators for the spacecraft Messenger, STEREO B, and Spitzer are on standby in case anything goes wrong.
Solar flares increase in frequency and intensity as the sun reaches the peak in its 11-year solar cycle known as a solar maximum. The sun is expected to hit solar maximum in 2013, so expect plenty more fireworks this year from our friendly neighborhood star.
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