The sun was pretty active Wednesday, unleashing a huge solar flare toward the Earth.

The sun fired off what's known as an X-class solar flare, the most powerful type of flare, around 1:45 p.m. ET. The flare came out of a sunspot called Active Region 2158, which faces toward the Earth.

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft caught images of the big event, which posed no threat to Earth or astronauts aboard the International Space Station, NASA officials told Space.com.