Get a Closer Look at the Giant Sunspot's Solar Flares

Just last weekend, NASA's Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) noticed the largest sunspot seen in decades forming a blemish on our closest star, and now it has erupted in six substantial flares, according to recent reports.

According to NASA, a solar flare is a huge release of energy that converts the magnetic energy of the Sun into heat and light, while also accelerating particles and heating up the plasma into over 60 million Kelvin.

Continuing a week's worth of substantial flares beginning on Oct.19, the Sun emitted two high-level solar flares on Oct. 26 and Oct. 27. The first peaked at 8:34 pm EDT on Oct. 26, and the second peaked almost 10 hours later at 6:09 am EDT on Oct. 27.

This latest flare was classified as an X2-class flare, erupting from the largest active region seen on the Sun in 24 years, labeled AR 12192. X-class flares are the most intense kind, with an X2 twice as intense as an X1, while an X3 is three times as intense.

Despite the intensity of the flare, a NASA news release says, it poses no risk to us on Earth. These bursts can't 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.

Active regions are more common at the moment as we are in what's called solar maximum, which is the peak of the Sun's activity, occurring approximately every 11 years.

Nature World News reported earlier this year how experts are still struggling to explain how exactly sunspots work, which produce solar flares as well as coronal mass ejections.

To see how this latest event may affect Earth, you can visit NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center here.