Freebee Friday: The Sun Fights Back

Over Valentine’s Day as your class was giving each other heart shaped cards, our son was getting a little hot under the collar by ejecting a major flare. After years of a quiet star next door, the sun is acting up with an X-class flare, the most powerful and potentially dangerous type. The reason we should care, and a nice physics and social studies lesson, is that when the remnants of this flare hit the earth later today and over the weekend, it can cause havoc with the power grid, sensitive electronics and communications networks. It’s already disrupting radio transmissions in China. For ideas, check out NASA solar flares page.