X2-FLARE AND RADIO BLACKOUT | Spaceweather.com

X2-FLARE AND RADIO BLACKOUT | Spaceweather.com

X2-FLARE AND RADIO BLACKOUT: All week long, sunspot AR2297 has been crackling with solar flares. Today it produced a really big one. On March 11th at 16:22 UT (09:22 PDT), Earth orbiting-satellites detected an X2-class flare, shown here in an image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory:

Extreme ultraviolet radiation from the explosion ionized the upper layers of Earth's atmosphere, causing HF radio fade-outs and other propagation effects on the dayside of our planet. In the red zone of this map, ham radio operators and mariners may have noticed brief but complete blackout conditions at frequencies below 10 MHz. The disturbance has since subsided.

Natural radio emissions from the sun, which are produced by shock waves in the sun's atmosphere, suggest that a CME is emerging from the blast site at speeds exceeding 1,400 km/s (3.1 million mph). For confirmation, we are still awaiting coronagraph data from SOHO. Stay tuned. Solar flare alerts: text, voice