NASA observes return of giant sunspot producing mid-level flare

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has recently observed the return of a giant sunspot that produced mid-level flare on November 16, 2014.

The SDO, that watches the sun constantly, captured an image of the event. 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 flare emerged from an active region that rotated over the left side of the sun on November 13, 2014. This active region previously rotated across the front of the sun during the last two weeks on October, when it was the largest sunspot in 24 years. This time around it is one third of its previous size.

This flare is classified as an M5.7-class flare. M-class flares are a tenth the size of the most intense flares, the X-class flares. The number provides more information about its strength. An M2 is twice as intense as an M1, an M3 is three times as intense, etc. 

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