The solar flare – an intense burst of high-energy radiation – erupted at 12:52 pm ET (17:52 pm GMT) on Friday. According to NASA representatives, it was registered as X2.1(opens in new tab) which meant it was particularly busy. (Solar scientists divide strong flares into three categories; C is weakest, M is moderate, and X is strongest.) Friday’s flare’s strength can be seen in images taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). The Sun in detail since 2010.

“Aviators and radio amateurs may have noticed signal loss and other unusual propagation effects at frequencies below 30 MHz within an hour of the explosion,” the publication wrote.

Powerful flares are often accompanied by coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which blast huge clouds of solar plasma into space at millions of miles per hour. These clouds can produce geomagnetic storms on Earth, which can affect power grids and orbiting spacecraft and magnify our planet’s aurora borealis.

At this time, it is unclear whether the CME exploded at the same time as Friday’s X2.1 flare, or whether this CME will be directed to Earth. (Some of these plasma clouds pass by our planet.) Friday’s flare came as no surprise: The sun has been overactive recently, causing a series of powerful flares and CMEs. For example, solar flares triggered powerful geomagnetic storms in the last days of February. These storms intensified the aurora and blinded skywatchers around the world.

Often confined to very high latitudes, these dancing atmospheric light shows have been observed as far away as California’s Death Valley and Western Australia’s capital, Perth. Solar activity increases and decreases over an 11-year cycle. The Earth Star is clearly currently in an active phase of the current cycle, so we must be on the lookout for new flares.