The sun's largest sunspot in 24 years has just rotated away from Earth but it spewed out intense solar activity this week.

The sunspot dubbed as Active Region 12192 or AR 12192 blasted off four powerful flares in a span of four days with smaller solar flares in the mix. This sunspot region is so colossal in size, it's as large as Jupiter. It's been observed by scientists for the past 24 years.

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According to NASA scientists C. Alex Young and Dean Pesnell, AR 12192 is the largest sunspot observed and recorded in history.

Scientists are still baffled as to why sunspots grow this big or why they emerge on the sun's face one at a time. Young explains that when the sun reaches its maximum solar peak every 11 years, the intensity of concentrated magnetic fields build up under the solar surface where energy is waiting to bubble up.

Sunspots are generally the most active areas on the surface of the sun. Magnetic field lines are continuously warped.

When these lines break out, this phenomenon results in sunspots appearing on the face of the sun. They appear dark to the naked eye since they are cooler regions than their surrounding environment.

Although, AR 12192 is somewhat special due to its odd behavior scientists have observed. Regular sunspots generally shoot out coronal mass ejections accompanied by powerful flares but this colossal sunspot never spewed out solar flares when it directly faced the Earth.

These coronal mass ejections or solar flares cause geomagnetic storms that disrupt satellite communications or shut down power grids. A sunspot bigger than AR 12192 shorted out power lines in Quebec, Canada in 1989.

AR 12192 might be out of view from Earth for a while but there's a chance it will again appear in Earth's in about two weeks.

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