Scientists at the center determine the strengths of solar flares on a scale, with A-class flares being the smallest and X-class flares being the largest. The researchers categorized the July 3 flare as an X1, which is the largest category of solar flares. Solar flares are big eruptions of radiation on the surface of the sun, said Bill Murtagh, program organizer at the US SWPC.”Were talking the energy equivalent of millions of 100-megaton hydrogen bombs blowing up at the same time,” Murtagh said.Such a big release of energy can be felt here on Earth, 93 million miles away, he kept in mind. Solar flares are considered part of “space weather,” the conditions impacting the area around Earth that are generally triggered by the sun. Flares are often accompanied by coronal mass ejections, magnetic plasma bubbles that can reach Earth.If that energy makes its way here, it can affect high frequency communication and on rare occasions, international placing systems (GPS) and satellites, Murtagh said.The sun goes through an 11-year solar cycle where the flare activity level changes. Cycle 25 began in December 2019 with a solar minimum– a period when the sun is still active, however its quieter and has less sunspots.The activity will slowly increase and reach a solar optimum– a time when there are a great deal of sunspots– in July 2025. An overall solar eclipse will cross North America in April 2024, which might use researchers the opportunity to observe the suns activity, like solar eruptions or sunspots, throughout the event.”We hope that an eclipse close to solar optimum will not just show us an awe-inspiring corona, but also some huge, fascinating sunspots on the face of the Sun to help us find out about living inside the environment of an active star and the space weather it creates,” said Valentin Martinez Pillet, director of the National Solar Observatory in Boulder, Colorado, in a statement.In a normal solar cycle, Murtagh stated researchers normally see about 150 flares that reach the intensity of the July 3 flare. There could be around 1,500 smaller flares in the same period, he added. In the days following the solar flare, the location of the flare vanished from Earths deem the sun rotated, Murtagh said.The flares area will emerge again in two weeks, however he kept in mind the United States SWPC is continuing to monitor the eruptions on the other side of the sun during this time.When the solar flare is dealing with far from the Earth, the increased energy emissions can not impact our planet, he said.”These sunspot groups can continue for weeks and even months, so we want to see if it returns two weeks later,” Murtagh said.