solar flares Archives

October 16, 2023October 16, 2023 by Brian Koberlein

A Monster Solar Storm Struck Earth 14,300 Years Ago

Illustration of a solar flare striking Earth. Credit: NASA

The Sun is such a stable presence in our lives that we often take it for granted. Few things are as certain sure as the rising of the Sun each morning, and the cycles of the seasons mark the years of our lives. But the Sun is a star, and stars can sometimes be unpredictable. They can emit powerful solar flares and powerful X-rays. With our deep dependence on technology and electricity, the Sun poses a small but real risk to our civilization. As a recent study shows, the Sun has had some extremely powerful flares in recent cosmic times.

February 13, 2023February 13, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

The Sun Continues its Journey to Solar Maximum, Releasing X-Class Flares

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare – as seen in the bright flash in the center-left– on Feb. 11, 2023. The image shows a subset of extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the extremely hot material in flares, and which is colorized in red and orange. Credit: NASA/SDO

The Sun belted out strong solar flares two days in a row, as activity ramps up toward the next Solar Maximum, predicted for mid-2025.

On Saturday, February 11, a flare classified as X1.1 erupted from the Sun, while just a day before a different region on the Sun blasted out a X1.0 flare.

January 29, 2023January 29, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

Astronomers See Flashes on the Sun That Could be a Sign of an Upcoming Flare

A moderate solar flare erupts on the sun July 8, 2014 in this image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. Credit: NASA/SDO

Using data from the Solar Dynamics Observatory, scientists have discovered new clues that could help predict when and where the next solar flare might blast from the Sun.

Researchers were able to identify small flashes in the upper layers of the corona – the Sun’s atmosphere – found above regions that would later flare in energetic bursts of light and particles released from the Sun. The scientists compared the flashes to small sparklers before the big fireworks.

December 27, 2022December 28, 2022 by Laurence Tognetti

Planetary Interiors in TRAPPIST-1 System Could be Affected by Stellar Flares

In a recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, an international team of researchers led by the University of Cologne in Germany examined how stellar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) erupted by the TRAPPIST-1 star could affect the interior heating of its orbiting exoplanets. This study holds the potential to help us better understand how solar flares affect planetary evolution. The TRAPPIST-1 system is an exolanetary system located approximately 39 light-years from Earth with at least seven potentially rocky exoplanets in orbit around a star that has 12 times less mass than our own Sun. Since the parent star is much smaller than our own Sun, then the the planetary orbits within the TRAPPIST-1 system are much smaller than our own solar system, as well. So, how can this study help us better understand the potential habitability of planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system?

November 14, 2022November 14, 2022 by Laurence Tognetti

The Sun Could Hurl Powerful Storms at Earth From its Goofy Smile

NASA recently photographed the Sun "smiling" (Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Solar Dynamics Observatory)

Our Sun is the very reason we’re alive. It provides warmth and the energy our planet needs to keep going. Now you can add photogenic to its illustrious résumé, as NASA recently photographed our giant ball of nuclear fusion doing something quite peculiar.

November 4, 2022November 2, 2022 by Paul M. Sutter

Solar Orbiter Records a Stunning Timelapse of Solar Activity as it Completes its Latest Flyby

The darker area on this image of the Sun's surface is the southern extension of the northern hemisphere polar corona. The coronal hole is a source of fast-moving streams of particles from the Sun, which can cause auroras here on Earth. Image: NASA/SDO

The sun is currently sleeping. Its surface and corona are relatively quiet as it prepares to ramp up for an expected phase of high activity in 2025. This past October, the ESA’s Solar Orbiter was able to sneak in a close-up peak at the Sun as it slumbers.

August 20, 2022August 20, 2022 by Andy Tomaswick

Not Just a Planet Hunter. TESS Found Over 25,000 Flaring Stars

One of the beauties of modern-day space telescopes is that the data they produce, which is eventually wholly released to the public, contains useful information about much more than their primary mission objective. Other astronomers can then sift through the data using their own ideas, and in many cases, their own algorithms. Recently, a team from Poland turned a flare-searching algorithm on TESS’s planet-hunting data, and found an astonishing 25,229 stars with solar flares in the data set.

January 31, 2022January 31, 2022 by Evan Gough

During a Solar Flare, Dark Voids Move Down Towards the Sun. Now We Know Why

Solar flares are complex phenomena. They involve plasma, electromagnetic radiation across all wavelengths, activity in the Sun’s atmosphere layers, and particles travelling at near light speed. Spacecraft like NASA’s Solar and Heliophysics Observatory (SOHO) and the Parker Solar Probe shed new light on the Sun’s solar flares.

But it was a Japanese-led mission called Yohkoh that spotted an unusual solar flare in 1999. This flare displayed a downward flowing motion toward the Sun along with the normal outward flow. What caused it?

A team of researchers think they’ve figured it out.

August 7, 2021August 7, 2021 by Brian Koberlein

Good News! Red Dwarfs Blast Their Superflares out the Poles, Sparing Their Planets From Destruction

The only known life in the universe lives on a mid-size rocky planet that orbits a mid-size yellow star. That makes our planet a bit unusual. While small rocky planets are common in the galaxy, yellow stars are not. Small red dwarf stars are much more typical, making up about 75% of the stars in the Milky Way. This is why most of the potentially habitable exoplanets we’ve discovered orbit red dwarfs.

July 13, 2021September 10, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

The Sun is Mellow Yellow Today. Billions of Years Ago? Not So Much

Planetary formation theory has been undergoing a lot of changes recently, with an ever expanding litany of events that can potentially impact it. Everything from gravity to magnetic fields seems to impact this complex process. Now scientists want to add another confounding factor – massive solar flares thousands of times more powerful than the most powerful we have ever observed from the Sun.