X1.1 Class Solar Flare – July 6, 2012

 

The video below shows an X1.1 Solar flare being released at region AR1514 of the sun, on July 6, 2012

This flare measured 171 Angstrom wavelength. Solar region AR1515 has been releasing multiple M and C-class flares this entire week. Solar flares of this magnitude can cause radio communication disruption on Earth’s polar regions, as it causes imbalance in the ionosphere. This particular flare caused a radio blackout labeled R3 in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations (NOAA) scale.

Radio blackouts are measured from R1 to R5.  These levels of blackouts (R1 to R5) cause disruption to high as well as low level radio frequencies.

This flare of July 6, 2012 also caused a Solar Energetic Particle acceleration event (SEP), which caused disturbance in the interplanetary medium.

SEPs are caused by fast charged particles or plasma, from the sun traveling behind the flare via the solar wind stream, and impacting the Earth’s magnetosphere.

The Earth’s magnetosphere also experienced a minor geomagnetic storm on the evening of July 6, in response to this flare’s Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), and other CMEs that have erupted from R1514 since July 4, 2012.

CREDIT: NASA- Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)