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Sun fires powerful M6.9 solar flare and CME toward Earth — could it boost northern lights chances this week?
A restless Earth-facing sunspot has been firing off a barrage of powerful solar flares — and now a CME could be heading our way.
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Today (Aug. 25), the sun unleashed a powerful M6.9 solar flare from a restless Earth-facing sunspot, hurling a coronal mass ejection (CME) into space — and Earth could potentially be in the firing line.
The M6.98 solar flare erupted from the active sunspot region 4513 and peaked at 6 a.m. EDT (1000 GMT), according to SpaceWeatherLive. 4513 has been particularly active over the last 24 hours, firing off a barrage of solar flares including five powerful M-class eruptions.
Solar flares are ranked by strength into five classes — A, B, C, M and X — with each class 10 times more powerful than the one before it. M-class flares are the second-strongest category, sitting just below the most powerful X-class eruptions.
The eruption also triggered a moderate (R2) radio blackout across the sunlit side of Earth, affecting high-frequency radio communications over parts of Africa, Europe and the Arctic.
Now, all eyes are on the CME launched during today's M6.9 eruption.
Early modelling suggests Earth could receive a glancing blow from the CME on Friday (Aug. 28). According to aurora chaser Jure Atanackov, NASA's model predicts the CME could reach Earth at around 6-7 a.m. EDT (1000-1100 GMT), with an uncertainty of around seven hours.
Here we go. This is the NASA M2M WSA-ENLIL+Cone model prediction for the CME. A glancing blow, as indicated by lopsided EUV dimming. The arrival is expected on August 28th (Friday) around 10-11h UTC (+/-7h). Slow, not expecting much from this one. https://t.co/GmyhSbxTGn pic.twitter.com/EkoZBmyKYKAugust 25, 2026
Though Atanackov described the CME as slow-moving and said he isn't expecting much from the glancing encounter, there's another piece of the space weather puzzle that could make things interesting for aurora chasers.