X7 Flare Blasts into Space An X7 (major) solar flare, coronal wave and a coronal mass ejection (CME) erupted on Aug. 9, 2011. This is the largest solar flare thus far of only three X-class flares for Solar Cycle 24!! The brightness of the flare causes very bright saturation and 'blooming' above and below the flare region on the CCD detector and caused extended diffraction patterns to spread out across the SDO imager, which was observing the Sun in extreme ultraviolet light. The solar storm, which originated on the far right side of the Sun, was not Earth-directed. The video clip covers about 90 minutes of action.