The Giant Solar Flare Event of January 7, 2014 in Light of the Planetary Theory of Solar Variability (reprint)

On 7 January, 2014 at 18:32 GMT, the Sun unleashed a massive X1.2-class solar flare, seven times the size of the Earth (NASA News, 2014b). At the occasion there was a strict triple inferior conjunction of Jupiter, Earth and Venus with respect to the Sun. The strength of the tidal planetary forcing on the Sun proposed by Scafetta (2012) was at its maximum. Numerous major solar flare eruptions occurred when one or more tide-producing planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Jupiter) were either nearly above the event positions or at the opposing side of the Sun (Hung, 2007). The finding is taken as a strong observational argument in favor of the planetary theory of solar vari ation introduced in 1856 by Wolf (1856), and recently discussed in the works of the Special Issue in PRP: Pattern in solar variability, their planetary origin and terrestrial impacts (Mörner et al., 2013).