The sun has just unleashed its most powerful flare of the cycle: a colossal X-class eruption.

The X9.05 solar flare peaked 8:10am EDT (1210 GMT), causing shortwave radio blackouts over Africa and Europe, the sunlit part of the Earth at the time of the eruption.

The solar flare came from the sunspot group AR3842, which has previously made headlines. On October 1, the same sunspot region fired one powerful X7.1 solar flare and released one coronal mass ejection (CME) – a plume of plasma and magnetic field – currently barreling towards it Earth. That is expected to be the next CME hit Earth between October 3 and 5possibly causing widespread auroras.

An Earth-centered CME was indeed tracking the monster flare, space weather forecaster and meteorologist Sara Housseal confirmed in a post on amplified radiation. aurora displays. “Right now I expect an impact on Earth in the late 5th – early 6th,” Housseal wrote.