A powerful solar flare hit our planet on November 7, causing radio blackouts in several areas of the South Pacific.
The event, identified by researchers as an M5-class solar flare, apparently originated from sunspot AR3141 at around 7 p.m. ET on Sunday, November 6.
Radiation brought by the flare caused ionization of Earth’s atmosphere and triggered the aforementioned temporary radio blackout which afflicted some of Australia and all of New Zealand.
One website dedicated to auroras and space weather described the flare as “impulsive” and apologized for not providing an alert for it, as they usually do for such events.
They also noted that the flare was also accompanied by a coronal mass ejection that, however, was not aimed at Earth.