SOHO’s view of September solar flares

The Sun unleashed powerful solar flares on 6 September, one of which was the strongest in over a decade. An X2.2-class flare was launched at 09:10 GMT and an X9.3 flare was observed at 12:02 GMT. An M-class flare was also observed two days earlier on 4 September. The flares were launched from a group of sunspots classified as active region 2673.

The images were captured by the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, SOHO. The shaded disc at the centre of the image is a mask in SOHO’s LASCO instrument that blocks out direct sunlight to allow study of the faint details in the Sun's corona. The white circle added within the disc shows the size and position of the visible Sun.