Grumpy-looking Sun causes radio blackouts on Earth

By Dean Murray via SWNS

A grumpy-looking Sun has caused radio blackouts on Earth this week.

Powerful solar flares have followed activity centered in the Sun’s northern hemisphere and southeast edge - with the resulting patterns seemingly looking like eyes and a crooked mouth.

Sunspot regions released a string of seven M flares which, categorized as medium-sized, generally cause brief radio blackouts that usually affect Earth's polar regions.

However, the largest one on Feb. 9 affected South Africa’s east coast and Madagascar.

Solar flares are large eruptions of electromagnetic radiation from the Sun lasting from minutes to hours.

Different extreme-ultraviolet light views show different details of the Sun. (SDO/NASA via SWNS)

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The sudden outburst of electromagnetic energy travels at the speed of light, therefore any effect upon the sunlit side of Earth’s exposed outer atmosphere occurs at the same time the event is observed. Minor radiation storms sometimes follow an M-class flare.

The flare events were observed by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), a spacecraft mission to observe the Sun’s dynamics to "increase understanding of the nature and sources of solar variability."

SDO documents the outer atmosphere of the Sun - called the corona - as well as hot flare plasma.

The scenes have been captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft, which observes the Sun’s dynamics to "increase understanding of the nature and sources of solar variability."

SDO documents the outer atmosphere of the Sun - called the corona - as well as hot flare plasma.

NASA said: "Hot active regions, solar flares, and coronal mass ejections will appear bright here.

"The dark areas - called coronal holes - are places where very little radiation is emitted, yet are the main source of solar wind particles."