NASAのインスタグラム(nasa) - 1月9日 00時38分

Sun Unleashes First X-class Flare of 2014, Delaying Rocket Launch - The sun emitted a significant solar flare peaking at 1:32 p.m. EST on Jan.7, 2014. This is the first significant flare of 2014, and follows on the heels of mid-level flare earlier in the day. Each flare was centered over a different area of a large sunspot group currently situated at the center of the sun, about half way through its 14-day journey across the front of the disk along with the rotation of the sun.

Early this morning, Orbital Sciences Corp. decided to scrub today’s launch attempt of the Antares rocket and the Cygnus cargo spacecraft on the company’s first resupply mission to the International Space Station due to an unusually high level of space radiation that exceeded constraints imposed on Antares. The solar flux activity resulted in an increasing level of radiation beyond what the Antares engineering team monitored earlier in the day. At Mission Control in Houston, the flight control team reported that the ISS crew is not affected by this solar event and does not require any special precautionary measures.

Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel. This disrupts the radio signals for as long as the flare is ongoing, anywhere from minutes to hours.

This pictures combines two images from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured on Jan. 7, 2013.

Image Credit: NASA/SDO

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