A newly active area on the sun is responsible for dozens of eruptions known as solar flares, including back-to-back X-class flares earlier this week.
Solar flares typically originate from active regions on the sun, which are marked by groups of sunspots -- such as Region 4366.
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory was watching as Region 4366 unleashed multiple X-class flares, the strongest category on the space weather scale. X-class flares are the most intense type of solar flare, and the number that follows the "X" indicates the flare's relative strength.
On Wednesday, Region 4366 blasted out an X4.2 flare just hours after producing another strong X1.5 flare. Earlier in the week, the same sunspot region generated one of the strongest flares of the year -- an X8.1 event.
The flash from Wednesday's X4.2 flare can be seen above in imagery from SDO as an intense burst of extreme ultraviolet light, highlighting super-heated solar material in red and blue.
