SOLAR FLARE AND RADIO BLACKOUT: Departing sunspot AR2290 erupted on March 2nd at 15:30 UT

SOLAR FLARE AND RADIO BLACKOUT: Departing sunspot AR2290 erupted on March 2nd at 15:30 UT, producing an M3-class solar flare. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory caught a twisted plume of plasma rising up from the blast site on the sun's northwestern limb:

A pulse of extreme UV radiation from the flare ionized the upper layers of Earth's atmosphere on the dayside of our planet. This caused a blackout of radio transmissions at frequencies below 10 MHz. The effect was particularly strong above South America and parts of the south Atlantic: blackout map. The explosion might have produced a CME, but coronagraph data are not yet available to evaluate this possibility. Stay tuned. Solar flare alerts: text, voice