Tuesday, July 03, 2012

Solar Flare's Red Glare: Sun Unleashes Early Fourth of July Fireworks



The sun erupted with a powerful solar flare Monday (July 2) in an early solar fireworks display just in time for the Fourth of July. A wave of plasma from the flare could reach Earth by the U.S. Independence Day holiday on Wednesday, July 4.

The sun storm came from a large sunspot called AR1515 that is now rotating across the Earth-facing side of the sun. It unleashed an intense solar flare at 6:43 a.m. EDT (1043 GMT) today in what is expected to be one of several strong solar storms in the days ahead, space weather officials said. Read more

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