A dead sunspot exploded on Monday this week, ejecting a mass of solar material that will reach the Earth today... but don't panic!

AR2987, as this one is called, released an impressive amount of energy (radiation) which triggered a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) – I know; it sounds like a porn movie.

A CME are explosive balls (told you) of solar material that will be viewable as Northern Lights, also known as an Aurora Borealis, so no need for a 100-sun-factor, suntan lotion and a prolonged stay in a bunker.

Sunspots are caused by intense magnetic flux from inside the sun, manifesting itself as these dark patches on the surface of the Sun.

AR2987 emitted a C-class solar flare on Monday at 05.21h GMT which are fairly common and don’t normally produce CMEs – when the do, they are nothing to write home about. It is expected that the CME that arrives today shouldn’t affect satellites very much, and may cause minor fluctuations on power grids.

We have had more dodgy ones (M and X Class) before; in 1859, to be precise, but as we didn’t use electricity very much in those days, it didn’t cause any problems, but had it been nowadays… well…

(News: The Earth)