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Strong Flare Erupts from Sun

The Sun emitted a strong solar flare, peaking at 4:41 p.m. ET on July 4. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the Sun constantly, captured an image of the event. 

Against a black background, the Sun is shown 3 times horizontally. On each Sun, there is a bright flash on the left. The first Sun is red, the second is gray and white, and the third is blue.
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare — seen as the bright flash on the left — on July 4, 2026. The image shown here is from a wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light and is colorized in red, white, and blue, to highlight the extremely hot material in flares.
NASA/SDO

Solar flares are powerful bursts of energy. Flares and solar eruptions can impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals, and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts.    

This flare is classified as an X1.3 flare. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength.

To see how such space weather may affect Earth, please visit NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center https://spaceweather.gov/, the U.S. government’s official source for space weather forecasts, watches, warnings, and alerts. NASA works as a research arm of the nation’s space weather effort. NASA observes the Sun and our space environment constantly with a fleet of spacecraft that study everything from the Sun’s activity to the solar atmosphere, and to the particles and magnetic fields in the space surrounding Earth.