Massive Solar Flare

msn.com wrote:The X.9 flare is the biggest to be recorded in the current solar cycle—an 11 year period where the sun’s activity increases and decreases. At the moment, we are headed towards a solar minimum. This is the phase where eruptions from the sun become increasingly rare. The next solar minimum is expected at some point between 2019 and 2020.

But the last few solar cycle have been baffling scientists. Over the last solar minimum (in 2010), sunspots were almost completely absent for a period of two years—something that had not been recorded for almost 100 years.

A recent study of the last 30 years’ worth of data on the solar cycle indicates that the magnetic field distribution, where a lot of the magnetic activity is recorded, had become thinner in recent years. Scientists also found rotation rate of the sun has changed.

"This is not how it used to be and the rotation rate has slowed a bit at latitudes around about 60 degrees,” study author Yvonne Elsworth, from the University of Birmingham, U.K, said. “We are not quite sure what the consequences of this will be but it's clear that we are in unusual times."

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/sun-unleashes-biggest-solar-flare-for-over-a-decade-causing-radio-blackout/ar-AArrks2