Solar flare bonanza! The Sun has emitted the third significant solar flare within 24 hours, the strongest X-class flare this year so far.

The flare, classified as an X3.2 flare, surpassed in strength the two flares that occurred earlier in the 24-hour period.

The flare was also associated with a coronal mass ejection, or CME. However, CME was not Earth-directed.

Experimental NASA research models show that the CME left the Sun at approximately 2,253 km per second, which is particularly fast for a CME.

The models suggest that it will catch up to the two CMEs associated with the earlier flares. The merged cloud of solar material will pass by the Spitzer spacecraft and may give a glancing blow to the STEREO-B and Epoxi spacecraft.

Their mission operators have been notified. If warranted, operators can put spacecraft into safe mode to protect the instruments from solar material.

The X2.8-class flare was also associated with a coronal mass ejection, or CME, another solar phenomenon that can send billions of tonnes of solar particles into space, which can potentially affect electronic systems in satellites and on the ground.

The second-strongest was an X5.4 event on March 7, 2012.

The strongest was an X6.9 on August 9, 2011.

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.

This disrupts the radio signals for as long as the flare is ongoing — the radio blackout associated with this flare has since subsided.

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