Solar X Flares

Our sun shot out a CME (coronal mass ejection) or solar X flare, as you can see in the measurement graph. NASA also took spectacular pictures of the flare leaving the sun, check them out at NASA.gov "Over the July 14-15, 2012 weekend and through the early morning of July 16, Earth experienced what's called a geomagnetic storm, which happens when the magnetic bubble around Earth, the magnetosphere, quickly changes shape and size in response to incoming energy from the sun. In this case that energy came from a coronal mass ejection (CME) associated with a July 12 X-class flare. Geomagnetic storms can create aurora visible at lower latitudes than usual, and aurora were spotted in the US as far south as Missouri and Arkansas."