Angry sun spits two million-mph tongues of fire

By Anastassiya Pastoukhova

The sun erupted with the strongest solar flares it can unleash. This is the third such eruption that happened in the recent days, says Irina Tsepakina, the specialist of the Institute of Ionosphere of the Republic of Kazakhstan to AkZhaik newspaper.  

The sun fired off a flare that registered at X1.7 on the space weather scale at 4:01 a.m. EDT (0801 GMT) Friday, then followed with an X.2-class event at 11:07 a.m. EDT (1507 GMT). 

But neither eruption is likely to spark major geomagnetic storms in Earth's magnetic field, added Tsepakina.