When stars turn bad: Hubble shows damage a REALLY big solar flare can do - just as huge sunspot turns fiery gaze towards Earth

•Huge X-Ray flare 'blasts' atmosphere off into space at 300,000mph
•Planet's upper atmosphere 'boiled off' by flare
•NASA says new sunspot group on Earth - AR 1520 - is biggest for some time
•Strong chance of powerful solar flares over next few days
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have seen a horrifying glimpse of the destructive power of solar flares, as a huge X-Ray flare 'boiled off' the atmosphere of a distant planet.

Our own sun's flares are usually only powerful enough to disrupt radio communications on Earth, but a new sunspot group - AR 1520 - is one of the biggest in years, and may bombard Earth next week.


Just after a violent flare on its parent star bathed it in intense X-ray radiation, the planet HD 189733b's atmosphere gave off a powerful burst of evaporation.

Hubble found that the planet's upper atmosphere was streaming away at speeds exceeding 300,000 mph. Just before the Hubble observation, NASA's Swift detected the star blasting out a strong X-ray flare, one powerful enough to blow away part of the planet's atmosphere
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