Initial blast from record-setting series of explosions was as much as 10,000 times more powerful than the largest solar flare ever recorded At its peak, the flare reached temperatures of 360 million degrees Fahrenheit (200 million Celsius), more than 12 times hotter than the center of the sun ‘Superflare’ came from one of the stars in a close binary system known as DG Canum Venaticorum located about 60 light-years away. […]

Back in 2012, the Earth narrowly escaped a solar storm “big enough to knock modern civilization back to the 18th century,” according to a report published by NASA. “If it had hit, we would still be picking up the pieces,” University of Colorado Professor Daniel Baker said. On July 23, 2012 a powerful coronal mass ejection (CME) erupted from the sun at speeds as fast as 3,000 kilometres per second. […]