Magnetars FlareClick here to see a NASA solar flare movie! Here's a nice and short article from NASA about a solar flare that hit Earth back in 1998. X-class solar flares -- flares that send x-rays and gamma rays bursting out of the sun are typical. Usually they impact orbiting satellites and ham radios, but mostly are controlled by the Earth's magnetic field. In 1998 however, a blast of x-rays and gamma rays hit the Earth -- only it wasn't from our sun. It was from outer space -- a neutron star about 45,000 light years away.

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