See the massive X-flare in the Sun’s Big Bang

Science: The sun has been quiet recently, but now it has shone back with a large X-class solar flare eruption, the most powerful class of solar flare. The intense solar flare originated from sunspot region AR3869 and spread over a span of an hour, reaching its peak at 11:57 p.m. EDT on Oct. 23 (0357 GMT on Oct. 24). The extreme ultraviolet radiation from the eruption triggered shortwave radio blackouts in Australia and Southeast Asia.

The eruption was accompanied by a coronal mass ejection (CME) — a plume of plasma and magnetic fields, according to space weather forecaster Sarah Housel’s post on X. “As expected with the return of multiple regions, large solar flare activity has also returned. AR3869 wasted no time heading straight for an X3.3 flare with a large CME this morning,” Housel wrote. “These regions will need to be monitored over the coming days as they move west and turn towards Earth.

When CMEs hit Earth they can trigger geomagnetic storms like those experienced earlier this month, leading to impressive northern lights displays extending to the mid-latitudes. But before you aurora hunters start getting too excited, note that due to the position of the sunspot at the time of the explosion, no significant portion of the CME released during the event is likely to impact Earth