On April 30, the surface of the Sun launched an extremely powerful solar flare that caused radio outages in almost the entire region of the Pacific Ocean. The eruption lasted just over 10 minutes, but the blackout may have lasted almost 30 minutes.
- The solar flare emerged from the AR3654 sunspot region, making it the most powerful in the region to date;
- It reached its peak at around 8:46 pm Brasília time and ended shortly after 8:58 pm;
- NASA’s GOES-16 satellite classified the eruption as level M9.53, only slightly less powerful than the most powerful X-class explosions.
Shortwave radio blackouts, like the one in the Pacific, are common consequences of solar flares. This is because these powerful explosions emit strong pulses of x-rays and ultraviolet radiation. This radiation reaches Earth at the speed of light, and ends up ionizing the atmosphere when it collides with it.
When the ionization of the atmosphere occurs, short radio waves must try to navigate in a denser environment, making their collisions with electrons more frequent. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center, this causes radio waves to lose energy and end up being degraded or completely absorbed.
Signal loss in the Pacific region was below 20 MHz and the blackout is believed to have lasted for up to 30 minutes after the peak of the solar flare.
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Solar flare and solar maximum
As solar maximum approaches, the occurrence of spots and eruptions tends to increase. However, in recent weeks the surface of the Sun has been quite calm, at least until now.
As solar maximum approaches, researchers have been keeping an eye on the Sun as eruptions could impact Earth. Even though eruptions do not have the potential to cause any lasting damage to the planet, they can still cause radio outages and damage satellites.
