New Delhi : This year’s most powerful solar flare  erupted from the Sun on Thursday (April 11), and it’s effect  may reach Earth on Saturday.

The solar fare sparked  a temporary radio blackout on Earth, NASA officials said.

The solar flare occurred at 3:16 a.m. EDT (0716 GMT)  on thursday and  it was registered as a M6.5-class sun storm, a relatively mid-level flare on the scale of solar btempests.

It coincided with an eruption of super-hot solar plasma known as a coronal mass ejection.

“This is the strongest flare seen so far in 2013,” NASA spokeswoman Karen Fox  said.

A NASA statement said: “The M6.5 flare on the morning of April 11, 2013, was also associated with an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection (CME), another solar phenomenon that can send billions of tons of solar particles into space and can reach Earth one to three days later.

“CMEs can affect electronic systems in satellites and on the ground. Experimental NASA research models show that the CME began at 3:36 a.m. EDT on April 11, leaving the sun at over 600 miles per second.

“Earth-directed CMEs can cause a space weather phenomenon called a geomagnetic storm, which occurs when they connect with the outside of the Earth’s magnetic envelope, the magnetosphere, for an extended period of time.

“The recent space weather also resulted in a weak solar energetic particle (SEP) event near Earth.

“These events occur when very fast protons and charged particles from the sun travel toward Earth, sometimes in the wake of a solar flare. These events are also referred to as solar radiation storms.

“Any harmful radiation from the event is blocked by the magnetosphere and atmosphere, so cannot reach humans on Earth.

“Solar radiation storms can, however, disturb the regions through which high frequency radio communications travel.

“NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center is the United States Government official source for space weather forecasts, alerts, watches and warnings.

“NASA and NOAA – as well as the US Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA) and others — keep a constant watch on the sun to monitor for space weather effects such as geomagnetic storms.

“With advance notification many satellites, spacecraft and technologies can be protected from the worst effects”, the statement concluded promising regular updates would be given.

NASA’s sun-watching Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded a stunning video of the strongest solar flare of 2013 showing it  in detail.

The spacecraft is one of several space-based observatories keeping track of the sun’s solar weather events.

NASA officials dubbed the solar flare as a “spring fling” for the sun, which has been relatively calm as it heads into its peak activity period.

Thursday’s M-class solar flare was about 10 times weaker than X-class flares, which are the strongest flares the sun can unleash.

M-class solar flares are the weakest solar events that can still trigger space weather effects near Earth, such as communications interruptions or spectacular northern lights displays.

The solar flare triggered a short-lived radio communications blackout on Earth that registered as an R2 event (on a scale of R1 to R5), according to space weather scales maintained NOAA, Fox added.