Sun Unleashes Powerful Solar Flare

A powerful solar flare has been unleashed by the Sun, sending out radiation that caused a radio blackout on earth.

Spectacular images of the event have been released by space agency Nasa , which described it as a X1.8-class flare.

It said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association had categorised the brief radio blackout associated with the flare as an R3, on a scale from R1 to R5.

Solar flares involve powerful bursts of radiation, although the radiation cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground.

But when intense enough they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel - and potentially disrupt radio signals for anywhere between minutes to hours.