The Sun just fired off its most powerful kind of flare. At 1:09 p.m. EST on January 18, 2026, the Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded a dramatic burst of light and energy emerging from the Sun’s surface. Classified as an X1.9 flare, this event is part of the most intense category of solar flares — with the potential to disrupt life here on Earth. Solar flares are sudden explosions of energy caused by the tangling, crossing, or reorganizing of magnetic field lines near sunspots. This particular f