THIS incredible image shows a huge solar flare exploding out of the sun with such extreme force that it is threatening to knock-out power supplies on earth.

The spectacular explosion unleashed a wave of radiation hurtling 92MILLION miles across space towards us.

The blast - the largest solar flare witnessed in five years - is expected to cause a massive geomagnetic storm when it reaches earth.

This solar activity could cause some disruption in power grids, satellites that operate global positioning systems and other devices, and may lead to some re-routing of flights over the polar regions.

The storm could last for as long as 24 hours.

NASA's solar dynamics observatory captured the massive solar flare early this morning - and effects are expected to be felt on earth at around 7pm this evening.

Bill Murtagh, from the National Weather Service's Space Weather Prediction Centre, said: "This one was rather dramatic.

"We saw the initial flare occurring and it wasn't that big but then the eruption associated with it - we got energy particle radiation flowing in and we got a big coronal mass injection.

"You can see all the materials blasting up from the sun so it is quite fantastic to look at."

A NASA statement said: "The large cloud of particles mushroomed up and fell back down looking as if it covered an area of almost half the solar surface."

Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3625600/Solar-flare-to-hit-power-on-earth.html#ixzz1OguUltk5


Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3625600/Solar-flare-to-hit-power-on-earth.html#ixzz1OguPTgl2