On December 31, a massive solar eruption took place on the surface of the sun according to a new report by NASA. The eruption extended around 160,000 miles out from the surface of the sun, or 20 times the diameter of Earth from 10:20 am until 2:20 p.m.
Click here to see photos by NASA of the Solar Eruption.
"Magnetic forces drove the flow of plasma," NASA said, "but without sufficient force to overcome the sun's gravity much of the plasma fell back into the sun."
The sun is currently in an active phase of its 11-year-weather cycle, which experts have called Solar Cycle 24. The sun's activity cycle is predicted to reach its peak in 2013.
NASA's Solar Dynamic Observatory was fortunately not off on New Year's Eve, if they were, there is a good chance that we would have never found out about the eruption. The team released a video from the event which starts exactly from when the explosion began.
Solar Storm Peak
The sun's peak of solar activity this year will be the quietest seen in the past 100 years according to NASA experts. Radio waves that are well known to indicate high solar activity have been "very subdued" according to the report.
"It's likely to be the lowest solar maximum, as measured by sunspot 'number,' in more than a century," wrote Joe Gurman, a project scientist for NASA's sun-observing mission Stereo, or Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory.
Scientists still plan on watching the sun with "vested interest" as a rogue flare could damage electrical grids or know out communication satellites. Both occurrences have happened before according to a report by Space.com.
From the Solar Dynamics Observatory, scientists can watch for solar flares from the moment they erupt from the sun according to MSNBC. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory watches the particles or plasma as they make their way near Earth to determine if they'll actually hit our planet.
"The Earth is a very small target in a big solar system, and the models that try to track the CME through the solar system are still being developed," said NASA employee William Pesnell, according to Space.com.
NASA recently announced plans to begin an Interface Region Imagining Spectrograph mission in April 2013. Once the satellite is ready, it will then watch how energy and plasma move from the sun to its atmosphere according to Pesnell.
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