A big solar flare erupted from Earth’s star as it becomes extremely active in its new cycle, maybe one of the longest ever occurrences on the Sun. AR3032, a developing sunspot, burst, causing M3-class flares that lasted nearly eight hours.

From space, two satellites watched the action unfold.

The huge flare slammed onto the inner planets, including Earth, ionizing the upper atmosphere with the Sun’s strong ultraviolet radiation.

A shortwave radio blackout occurred throughout Japan and Southeast Asia as a result of the incident.

Radio operators in the vicinity may have detected strange transmission effects at frequencies below 30 MHz for more than an hour just after the flare’s peak, according to spaceweather.com. As seen by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, the explosion also flung a coronal mass ejection (CME) into space (SOHO).