MOSCOW, June 8< /strong> Heavy solar particles that escaped from a star at night reached the Earth, this happens quite rarely, said Sergei Bogachev, head of the Solar Astronomy Laboratory of the Institute of Space Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
“The Earth was hit today at about 6 a.m. by heavy particles from the Sun (mainly protons of very high energies — from 10 million electronvolts and up to above 100 million electronvolts),” Bogachev said. 
He clarified that such attacks are a rather rare event.
According to the scientist, if we convert the particle energy into temperature, it will correspond to values of about one billion degrees. Currently, the fluxes of particles of these energies are increased by approximately 10 thousand times compared to normal values, and will remain at a similar level for at least another 2-3 days, said the head of the laboratory.
He reassured that these particles have no chance of penetrating the Earth's surface, but noted that the radiation background in near-Earth space is now extremely negative — «one can only sympathize with the satellites, especially those operating in high orbits.»
The blow was dealt by a double solar flare of class X, which occurred around midnight, all in the active region 3697. This is the first proton event created by this region during its current (second) passage past the Earth, Bogachev explained. The region is still quite close to the Sun-Earth line (although it is moving away from it), so in two days a plasma strike with magnetic storms is not excluded, he warned. This is approximately how long it takes plasma clouds to reach Earth, unlike protons, which at such energies travel at a speed only several times slower than the speed of light and reach Earth in about an hour, the scientist said.
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