😱 Sun news update for April 30, 2024: Almost X flare! 👏 💥 🤩 It is always exciting when a sunspot region lives up to its potential. AR3654 has just done that. At 23:23 UTC on April 30, the region released a flare that almost made it to X-class, just shy of an X at an M9.5. It produced an R2 radio blackout over the Pacific Ocean west of Hawaii. We said it had the potential for another M and maybe even an X flare. It did not disappoint. Given that it just produced a decent-sized flare, the prob