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Eruption blows hole in sun's atmosphere, unleashing solar flare and potentially triggering northern lights

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A solar eruption has blown a massive hole in the sun's atmosphere, causing temporary radio blackouts and possibly triggering a northern lights display tomorrow. Scientists recorded an M5.7-class solar flare on Sunday (May 10), which briefly disrupted high-frequency radio communications on the sunlit side of our planet, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center . M-class solar flares are the second strongest category of solar eruption, after X-class flares. The eruption also produced a coronal mass ejection (CME) — a slower-moving cloud of solar plasma and radiation — that can trigger geomagnetic storms and aurora displays. There's no guarantee that the CME will hit Earth, but we could take a glancing blow, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center.…

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