NASA’S SDO CAPTURES IMAGE OF MID-LEVEL FLARE

The sun emitted a mid-level solar flare, peaking at 4:33 pm EDT on Sept. 4, 2017. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the sun constantly, captured an image of the event. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however — when intense enough — they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.

SDO observations of solar flare 4 Sept. 2017

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare on Sept. 4, 2017.

Credits: NASA/SDO

To see how this event may affect Earth, please visit NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center at http://spaceweather.gov, the U.S. government's official source for space weather forecasts, alerts, watches and warnings.

This flare is classified as an M5.5 class flare. M-class flares are a tenth the size of the most intense flares, the X-class flares. The number provides more information about its strength. An M2 is twice as intense as an M1, an M3 is three times as intense, etc.