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NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Spots Super Solar Flare

The sun emitted a significant solar flare, peaking at 12:06 p.m. EDT on September 10, 2017. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the sun constantly, captured this video of the event. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however - when intense enough, they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel. Some static can be observed at around 24 seconds in this video, caused by particles from the Sun striking the instrument.