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NASA imagery shows a late summer "flurry of flares" bursting from the sun

2014-09-01 99 Dailymotion

Images from NASA's Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) show it was a busy week on the surface of the sun.

It began began with an explosive mid-level flare that erupted last Sunday (August 24). The sun continued to unleash over half a dozen more flares within the next two days.

The SDO captured images of the flares, which erupted from a sunspot is known as AR2151.

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.