NASA is classifying the blast as an unusual solar flare. Their satellite cameras caught it at its peak Tuesday. A large cloud of charged magnetic particles appeared to be covering almost half the Sun’s surface.
At least, that’s what it looks like via NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which captured the massive solar flare as a fiery wave splashing across the sun’s surface.
Scientists have “never seen anything like it,” according to experts at the Goddard Spaceflight Center. Even so, the coronal mass ejection was classified as a medium-sized, minor radiation storm.
Considering the images released by NASA, you have to wonder what a major storm would look like.
Bad Astronomy blogger Phil Plait stresses the eruption isn’t dangerous, though it shot an enormous amount of gas and solar material into space. Nevertheless, Plait described it as “ginormous:”