On April 17, 2016, an active region on the Sun released an M6.7 class solar flare, captured here by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Solar flares are powerful outbursts of electromagnetic radiation from the Sun lasting from minutes to hours. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through the atmosphere of Earth to affect humans on the ground. However, when intense enough, they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications...
