New Delhi, Apr 13 : This year's most powerful solar flare erupted from the Sun on Thursday (April 11), and it's effect may reach Earth on Saturday.
The solar fare sparked a temporary radio blackout on Earth, NASA officials said.
The solar flare occurred at 3:16 a.m. EDT (0716 GMT) on thursday and it was registered as a M6.5-class sun storm, a relatively mid-level flare on the scale of solar btempests.
It coincided with an eruption of super-hot solar plasma known as a coronal mass ejection.
"This is the strongest flare seen so far in 2013," NASA spokeswoman Karen Fox said.
A NASA statement said: "The M6.5 flare on the morning of April 11, 2013, was also associated with an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection (CME), another solar phenomenon that can send billions of tons of solar particles into space and can reach Earth one to three days later.
"CMEs can affect electronic systems in satellites and on the ground. Experimental NASA research models show that the CME began at 3:36 a.m. EDT on April 11, leaving the sun at over 600 miles per second.
"Earth-directed CMEs can cause a space weather phenomenon called a geomagnetic storm, which occurs when they connect with the outside of the Earth's magnetic envelope, the magnetosphere, for an extended period of time.
"The recent space weather also resulted in a weak solar energetic particle (SEP) event near Earth.
"These events occur when very fast protons and charged particles from the sun travel toward Earth, sometimes in the wake of a solar flare. These events are also referred to as solar radiation storms.
