The same gigantic sunspot that was responsible for triggering a historic geomagnetic storm on Earth in mid-May whipped up a legendary one for Mars a few days later.
On May 20, data from Europe's Solar Orbiter spacecraft showed that an estimated X12 solar flare — the strongest type on the flare classification scale — erupted from the sunspot AR3664 (which was renamed AR3697 on its second trip around the sun). A powerful coronal mass ejection (CME) followed, sending a huge cloud of superhot solar plasma toward Mars at millions of miles per hour.
