The Sun emitted two powerful solar flares on Tuesday; both were classified as X-class flares, the most powerful kind of flares unleashed by the Sun.
The first flare was an X2.2 class flare that reached its peak at 7:42 AM, EDT. The second one was a X1.5 class, unleashed at around 8:36 AM EDT. The flares were produced by the Sun one at a time and may have affected radio communications on Earth for about an hour, Space.com reported.
Officials from the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo., believed that the flares were not likely to precede a coronal mass ejection (CME) - a burst of plasma ejected by the Sun.
The two flares observed on Tuesday increased the total number of solar flares observed in 2014 to seven flares. In April, a solar flare storm of X1.3 flares was observed. An X1 solar flare was also emitted by the Sun in February, an event preceded by a solar flare on March 29 and earlier observations.
X-class flares are the strongest kind of flares that the Sun can produce. The Sun can also emit M-class flares, responsible for the bright aurora shows on Earth's northern latitudes, as well as C-class flares, the weakest kind of solar flares.
"Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation," Karen Fox, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center said in a statement, as reported by Space.com. "Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground. "
While some people feared that a massive solar flare could destroy Earth, NASA clarified that it would be impossible. The maximum harm that it could do is to disrupt the GPS controls, car map systems, airplane navigation, and clocks used by banks due to the bad weather affecting the satellite in space.
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