A NASA spacecraft captures the moment a powerful flare erupted from our sun, 10 times the size of Earth

The strength of the glow is shown in a video taken by the NASA observatory, which has been studying the sun in detail since 2010.

A powerful X-class glow that could be 10 times the size of Earth was emitted from the surface of the burning star at 12:52 p.m. EDT (17:52 GMT) on March 3, causing a temporary shortwave radio outage. in North and South America.

The burst of energy, which lasted for seven minutes, was emitted from a sunspot called AR 3234, located in the upper right of the sun's surface, according to SpaceWeather.com.

The sunspot was first identified last February, but its size has since quadrupled, according to NASA.

SpaceWeather reported Friday, March 3, that pilots and radio operators noticed signal loss and other unusual propagation effects at frequencies below 30MHz for up to an hour after the flare.

The site stated: "Solar radio bursts that are now being reported by the US Air Force indicate that the explosion may also have produced what is known as a coronal mass emission (CME)."

A coronal mass ejection (CME) is a stream of superheated, energetic, magnetic gas emitted from the Sun.

Coronal mass ejections can eject billions of tons of corona matter from the sun's surface. Matter consists of plasma and magnetic fields.

Such explosions have the potential to spark space weather that can interfere with satellites and power grids on Earth, and can be harmful to unprotected astronauts.

NASA said its spacecraft recorded the flare as X2.1, part of a category that could lead to worldwide radio outages and long-lasting radiation storms in the upper atmosphere.

According to NASA, "The largest X-class flares are by far the largest eruptions in the solar system and are fascinating to watch."

Flares tens of times the size of Earth leap from the sun's surface when the sun's magnetic fields cross over each other and reconnect.

According to NASA: "In the largest events, this reconnection process can produce as much energy as a billion hydrogen bombs."

When the massive flare hit our planet, it interacted with the atmosphere and caused blackouts for up to 30 minutes. However, no major problems occurred as a result. Source: Daily Mail

The International Space Station once again escapes a collision with space debris

The Ross Cosmos Foundation announced that the International Space Station has once again succeeded in avoiding collisions with space debris.

On the subject, the Foundation's cosmonaut, Dmitry Petilin, said: "On March 6, the International Space Station succeeded in adjusting its orbit to avoid collisions with space debris."

He added, "Had it not been for the orbit adjustment process that took place around 18:00 Moscow time, the station would have come dangerously close to space debris, and the orbit correction was carried out using the engines of the Russian Progress MS-22 vehicle docked with the station, which had arrived at the station and docked with it on February 11." the past".

Ross Cosmos indicated that the station's orbit increased by 1.2 km after the aforementioned maneuver.

On December 21, the International Space Station carried out a similar maneuver to avoid space debris, and the Progress MS-20 engines that were docked with the station were used in the orbit correction process at the time. Source: TASS

The European Space Agency announces when Vega-C rocket launches will resume

The press service of the European Space Agency (ESA) announced that the agency plans to resume launches of Vega-C rockets this year.

“The European Space Agency plans to resume launching Vega-C rockets in December 2023,” a statement issued by the service read. “The ESA and Arianespace working group have begun implementing the roadmap proposed by the commission to investigate the causes of the accident that occurred with one of these rockets last December, so To ensure that the Vega-C rocket returns to carry out its flights reliably.

"The independent commission endorsed ESA's commitment to the highest safety standards and proposed a program of measures to ensure the safe return of Vega-C rockets to service," said Josef Ashbacher, Director General of the European Space Agency.

The European Space Agency and Arianespace had decided earlier to stop the launch of Vega-C missiles after the problem that occurred last December when trying to launch one of these missiles into space, as the missile was supposed to carry two satellites into Earth’s orbits, Pleiades Neo 5 and Pleiades. Neo 6, assigned to remotely sense the Earth, but the operation failed due to a malfunction in its engines two minutes and 27 seconds after its launch. Source: TASS

The new Japanese missile self-destructed due to the uncertainty of the mission's success until the end

The Japanese Space Agency announced the failure of the attempt to launch the new "H3" rocket into space, after the launch was postponed 3 times earlier due to technical problems and weather conditions.

And specialists from the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) decided to abort the "H3" rocket flight from the "Tanegashima" Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture, due to their uncertainty about the operation of the second stage engine.

The director of the Japanese Space Agency said that the abortion of the flight was decided "because it is impossible to predict the successful completion of the mission," adding that "it was decided to send the missile's self-destruct signal."

Later, the agency announced that the debris of the missile, which failed to launch for the fourth time, is likely to have fallen into the sea east of the Philippines.

The current launch attempt was the fourth of its kind, as the missile was scheduled to be launched on February 13, but it was postponed to February 15 due to problems with the flight control system, which is responsible for changing the position of the missile according to the wind direction.

On February 15, the launch was not allowed due to weather conditions, after which it was postponed to February 17, then the attempt also failed and it was decided to stop the launch due to technical problems.

The "H3" missile is supposed to replace the "H2A" missile currently in use.

The new missile can carry 1.3 times more than the "H2A", and the launch costs are half the cost of launching the "H2A" missile. Source: Novosti