Solar flares can persist for hours or only a few minutes.
Millions of people in the United States, Canada and Mexico looked up to the sky in awe as they watched the rare total solar eclipse on Monday. The path of totality, a tiny area where the Moon completely obscures the Sun, crossed across cities and sent the United States into a frenzy. Many people also reported spotting solar flares during the total eclipse.
On Monday, the sun was expected to be at its "solar maximum," or peak activity, during its 11-year solar cycle. During this period, the sun produced more solar flares and coronal mass ejections, which are massive plasma bubbles containing magnetic field lines, as per USA Today. John White, a weather photographer, posted images that he claimed captured two solar flares just before the eclipse reached totality. "Never seen such protruding solar flares. Apparently, you can put 100's of earths into one of those!" he wrote.
According to the European Space Agency, a solar flare is a massive explosion that occurs on the Sun when energy that has been trapped in "twisted" magnetic fields, which are often found above sunspots, is abruptly released. They may heat materials to millions of degrees in a matter of minutes, resulting in a burst of radiation that includes radio waves, X-rays, and gamma rays.
Depending on their strength, solar flares can persist for hours or only a few minutes. According to NASA's classification system, solar flares are categorised into B-class, the lowest, and X-class, the greatest, which is what was observed on New Year's Eve last year.
NASA explains that solar flares are robust releases of energy capable of influencing radio communications, electric power grids, and navigation signals and posing risks to spacecraft and astronauts. According to the space agency, the biggest solar flare ever observed happened on April 2, 2001. The flare exceeded the power of the one that occurred on March 6, 1989, which caused power system disruptions in Canada, as observed by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory Satellite.