November 5, 2003. Copyright 2002. Graphic News. All rights reserved.

Mega-flare is biggest ever recorded

LONDON, November 5, Graphic News: Just as solar scientists thought that sunspot activity may be winding down, the Sun unleashed the biggest solar flare ever recorded. 

Tuesday's mega-flare from active region 10486 was so energetic that it overloaded the detectors on satellites monitoring the SunÕs surface. Researchers are saying that the SunÕs current spate of activity, now 10 days in duration, is the most dramatic and intense ever witnessed.

Powerful solar flares are given an ÒXÓ designation. There were X8 and X3 events on Sunday, and last week X7 and X10 flares took place back-to-back. Researchers say TuesdayÕs flare went off the X-scale -- Òwell above X20Ó -- making it the most powerful ever recorded and surpassing the X20 flares of April 2, 2001 and August 16, 1989.

NASA scientists say a preliminary estimate based on images of the associated Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) suggests that the blast was accompanied by a gigantic gas cloud of some 10 billion tonnes of superhot plasma, ejected into space at about 2,300km/second (1,430 miles/second). 

Although part of the CME is directed towards Earth, scientists say we will receive only a glancing blow since the source region is right on the limb of the Sun as seen from Earth.
/ENDS

Sources: NASA, http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov