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NASA’s fleet of Heliophysics missions keeps constant watch on the Sun and space to help us understand what causes such eruptions on the Sun, as well as how this activity affects space, including near Earth, where it can impact astronauts and satellites. These are high-energy charged particles accelerated by solar eruptions. Two other eruptions blew off the Sun from this active region: an eruption of solar material called a coronal mass ejection and an invisible swarm of solar energetic particles. Over the course of each cycle, the Sun transitions from relatively calm to active and stormy, and then quiet again at its peak, known as solar maximum, the Sun’s magnetic poles flip. A new solar cycle comes roughly every 11 years. This was the second X-class flare of Solar Cycle 25, which began in Dec. Flares that are classified X10 or stronger are considered unusually intense. An X2 is twice as intense as an X1, an X3 is three times as intense, and so on. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength. This flare was classified as an X1-class flare. 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. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. On October 28, the biggest of these released a significant flare, which peaked at 11:35 a.m. Meanwhile, the Sun was sporting more active regions at its lower center, directly facing Earth.