Big Sunspot Unleashes Intense Solar Flare

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The surface of the sun erupted in a solar flare early today (Jan. 11), unleashing a blast of super-heated plasma into space.

A huge sunspot known as AR1654 produced the M1-class flare at 4:11 a.m. EST (0911 GMT), officials with NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory said in a description of the event. The SDO spacecraft is one of several sun-watching space telescopes keeping tabs on solar flares and other sun weather events.

According to Spaceweather.com, sunspot AR1654 is growing more active and is now "crackling with M-class solar flares" like the one that erupted today.

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