A powerful solar flare has been recorded on the Sun.

A powerful and spectacular explosion was recorded on the Sun today. According to photometric data, an M5.7 flare (approximately 57% of the highest magnitude X threshold) occurred on the star at 13:39 UTC. The most impressive part of the event was the unusually large plasma ejection generated by the explosion, centered on a giant prominence several million kilometers across. Only a portion of the prominence, approximately 1 million kilometers in size, was visible to telescopes.

The source of the flare is the new region 4436, which emerged from behind the Sun just a couple of days ago. This is the second consecutive strong explosion in this center, following the previous M2.6 flare, which occurred in the same area on May 7 and was also accompanied by a plasma ejection.

If the time difference between the events—3 days—is considered to be the time required for this sunspot group to accumulate energy, the next strong flare can be expected on Wednesday, May 13. It can be seen that by this time, the region currently moving from the left edge to the center of the Sun as it rotates will enter the zone of influence on Earth.

The plasma cloud ejected during the current event (incidentally, it is already visible on the coronagraph) is expected to pass by Earth, although mathematical models may still calculate a marginal impact. We'll post the calculations later.