The Sun emitted a strong solar flare, peaking at 3:19 a.m. ET on Oct. 26, 2024. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the Sun constantly, captured these images of the event.
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured these images of a solar flare — seen as the bright flash in each of the three image panes — on Oct. 26, 2024. The images show three different subsets of extreme ultraviolet light that highlight the extremely hot material in flares and which are colorized in teal, gold, and red. Credit: NASA/SDO
Solar flares are powerful bursts of energy. Flares and solar eruptions can impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals, and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts.
This flare is classified as an X1.8 class flare. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength.
To see how such space weather may affect Earth, please visit NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center https://spaceweather.gov/, the U.S. government’s official source for space weather forecasts, watches, warnings, and alerts. NASA works as a research arm of the nation’s space weather effort. NASA observes the Sun and our space environment constantly with a fleet of spacecraft that study everything from the Sun’s activity to the solar atmosphere, and to the particles and magnetic fields in the space surrounding Earth.
The Sun emitted a strong solar flare, peaking at 9:56 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the Sun constantly, captured an image of the event.
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare — seen as the bright flash in the center of the Sun’s disk — on Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024. The image shows a subset of extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the extremely hot material in flares and which is colorized in red. Credit: NASA/SDO
Solar flares are powerful bursts of energy. Flares and solar eruptions can impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals, and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts.
This flare is classified as a X1.8 flare. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength.
To see how such space weather may affect Earth, please visit NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center https://spaceweather.gov/, the U.S. government’s official source for space weather forecasts, watches, warnings, and alerts. NASA works as a research arm of the nation’s space weather effort. NASA observes the Sun and our space environment constantly with a fleet of spacecraft that study everything from the Sun’s activity to the solar atmosphere, and to the particles and magnetic fields in the space surrounding Earth.
The Sun emitted a strong solar flare, peaking at 3:08 a.m. ET on May 27, 2024. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the Sun constantly, captured an image of the event.
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare seen as the bright flash on the limb of the Sun on May 27, 2024, with an inset image of Earth for scale. The image shows a subset of extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the extremely hot material in flares and which is colorized in red. Credit: NASA/SDO
Solar flares are powerful bursts of energy. Flares and solar eruptions can impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals, and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts.
This flare is classified as a X2.8 flare. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength.
To see how such space weather may affect Earth, please visit NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center https://spaceweather.gov/, the U.S. government’s official source for space weather forecasts, watches, warnings, and alerts. NASA works as a research arm of the nation’s space weather effort. NASA observes the Sun and our space environment constantly with a fleet of spacecraft that study everything from the Sun’s activity to the solar atmosphere, and to the particles and magnetic fields in the space surrounding Earth.
The Sun emitted two strong solar flares, peaking at 9:23 p.m. ET on May 10, 2024, and 7:44 a.m. ET on May 11, 2024. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the Sun constantly, captured an image of the event.
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured images of the two solar flares on May 10 and May 11, 2024. The image shows a subset of extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the extremely hot material in flares created from a mixture of SDO’s AIA 193, 171 and 131 channels. Credit: NASA/SDO
Solar flares are powerful bursts of energy. Flares and solar eruptions can impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals, and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts.
The flares are classified as X5.8 and X1.5-class flares, respectively. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength.
To see how such space weather may affect Earth, please visit NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center https://spaceweather.gov/, the U.S. government’s official source for space weather forecasts, watches, warnings, and alerts. NASA works as a research arm of the nation’s space weather effort. NASA observes the Sun and our space environment constantly with a fleet of spacecraft that study everything from the Sun’s activity to the solar atmosphere, and to the particles and magnetic fields in the space surrounding Earth.
The Sun emitted a strong solar flare on Tuesday, May 10, 2022, peaking at 9:55 a.m. EDT. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the Sun constantly, captured an image of the event.
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare – as seen in the bright flash towards the middle of the Sun – on Tuesday, May 10, 2022. The image shows a subset of extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the extremely hot material in flares and which is colorized in teal. Credit: NASA/SDO
Solar flares are powerful bursts of energy. Flares and solar eruptions can impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals, and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts.
This flare is classified as an X-class flare. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength.
To see how such space weather may affect Earth, please visit NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center https://spaceweather.gov/, the U.S. government’s official source for space weather forecasts, watches, warnings, and alerts. NASA works as a research arm of the nation’s space weather effort. NASA observes the Sun and our space environment constantly with a fleet of spacecraft that study everything from the Sun’s activity to the solar atmosphere, and to the particles and magnetic fields in the space surrounding Earth.
The Sun emitted a mid-level solar flare on Jan. 20, 2022, peaking at 1:01 a.m. EST. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the Sun constantly, captured an image of the event.
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare – as seen in the bright flash on the right side of this image of the Sun – on January 20. The image from SDO’s Atmospheric Imaging Assembly 131 Ångström channel (colorized in teal) shows a subset of extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the extremely hot material in flares. Credits: NASA/SDO
Solar flares are powerful bursts of energy. Flares and solar eruptions can impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals, and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts.
This flare is classified as a M5.5 class flare. More info on how flares are classified here.
A zoom in on the flaring region. Credits: NASA/SDO
To see how such space weather may affect Earth, please visit NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center https://spaceweather.gov/, the U.S. government’s official source for space weather forecasts, watches, warnings, and alerts. NASA works as a research arm of the nation’s space weather effort. NASA observes the Sun and our space environment constantly with a fleet of spacecraft that study everything from the Sun’s activity to the solar atmosphere, and to the particles and magnetic fields in the space surrounding Earth.
From a flash on the Sun to a glimmer in the sky, last week’s solar storms illustrated the connection between the Sun and Earth. Three solar eruptions made their journey to Earth, culminating in aurora borealis, or northern lights, visible as far south as Utah.
It began with two active regions on the Sun – places where the Sun’s magnetic field is especially intense. All the active regions present on the Sun on Nov. 1 are shown below on a magnetic map of the Sun created by the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) instrument aboard NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. Pay special attention to Active Region (AR) 12887, toward the bottom right, and AR 12891, near the middle of the Sun.
Active regions on the Sun Nov. 1. Credit: NASA/SDO
On Nov. 1, AR 12887 erupted with a C1.3-class flare, reaching peak brightness at about 2 p.m. EDT. (Solar flares are divided into A, B, C, M and X-classes, each class ten times stronger than its predecessor. The number provides more information about its strength: A C2 is twice as intense as an C1, a C3 is three times as intense, etc.
Classes A through C typically have little to no effect on Earth.) Three hours later, an even brighter C4-class flare followed; two hours after that, an M1.6-class flare erupted from AR 12891 towards the center of the Sun. The Solar Dynamics Observatory’s Atmospheric Imaging Assembly instrument captured images of each flare at 193 Angstroms, a wavelength that highlights hot solar material more than a million degrees Fahrenheit.
Three flares erupt from the Sun in this timelapse image from SDO’s AIA 193 channel. The first two flares, in the bottom right region, peak at 2021-11-01T18:01 UT and 2021-11-01T21:33 UT. The third flare, near the center of the image, peaks at 2021-11-02T03:01 UT. Credit: NASA/SDO
These flares were not strong enough to have noticeable impacts on Earth. But even weaker solar flares sometimes coincide with coronal mass ejections, or CMEs – bursts of solar material that escape the Sun and spill out to space – which can still have impacts, as these did.
The European Space Agency/NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO mission, stationed at the first Lagrange point where forces from the satellite motion and the Sun and Earth’s gravity balance, carries an ideal instrument for detecting CMEs. This instrument, called a coronagraph, blocks the Sun’s bright surface to reveal its faint corona, or outer atmosphere, where solar eruptions are more easily spotted. In SOHO’s imagery from the event, the CMEs following each flare appear like clouds of smoke issuing from the Sun.
ESA/NASA’s SOHO spacecraft captured three CMEs erupting from the Sun. The first two appear from the bottom right of the central disk at 2021/11/1 19:00 and 22:00; the third from around the disk at about 2021/11/2 03:00. Credit: ESA/NASA/SOHO
Scientists at NASA’s Moon to Mars Space Weather Office retrieved the spacecraft data and entered it into a model to simulate the likely path of the CMEs. The simulation, shown below, depicts the Sun at the center, marking the current locations of several planets and spacecraft. Earth appears as a yellow dot at 3 o’clock.
The ENLIL model simulation the three CMEs as they merge and travel toward Earth. Credit: NASA/M2M
The simulations suggested that the three CMEs would blend together, creating a shockwave headed towards Earth and expected to arrive sometime late on Nov. 3 or early on Nov. 4.
Earth’s magnetic field and thick atmosphere protects its surface (and us) from most effects of solar eruptions. But the highest layers of our atmosphere can undergo many changes. As a CME collides with Earth’s magnetic field, it can generate geomagnetic storms: disturbances to Earth’s magnetic environment that have a variety of impacts, including the northern and southern lights.
By 5 p.m. EDT on Nov. 3, the shockwave had arrived. Magnetometers across the planet registered a Kp index – a measure of disturbance to Earth’s magnetic field – of 7, corresponding to a strong geomagnetic storm. Kp index levels range from 0 (quiet) to 9 (intense).
In the early morning hours of Nov. 4, aurora watchers across the Northern Hemisphere documented the results. The animated gif below shows the aurora over Utah, captured by NASA JPL producer Bill Dunford on Nov. 4 between 1:30-1:42 a.m. MDT.
Aurora Borealis, or northern lights, as viewed from Utah on Nov. 4. Credit: NASA/Bill Dunford.
This geomagnetic storm is now over, but as Solar Cycle 25 picks up and the Sun becomes more active, there is sure to be more.
To see how such space weather may affect Earth, please visit NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center https://spaceweather.gov/, the U.S. government’s official source for space weather forecasts, watches, warnings, and alerts. NASA works as a research arm of the nation’s space weather effort. NASA observes the Sun and our space environment constantly with a fleet of spacecraft that study everything from the Sun’s activity to the solar atmosphere, and to the particles and magnetic fields in the space surrounding Earth.
By Miles Hatfield NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
A mass of solar material that erupted from the Sun on Oct. 9, 2021, reached Earth on Oct. 12. The Earth-directed coronal mass ejection, or CME, elevated the Kp index, a measure of disturbance to Earth’s magnetic field, to 6 (moderate level). Kp index levels range from 0 (quiet) to 9 (intense).
The CME was associated with an M1.6 class solar flare from Active Region 2882 on that peaked on Oct. 9 at 6:38 UTC (2:38 a.m. EDT). M-class flares are a tenth the size of the most intense flares, the X-class flares. The number provides more information about its strength. An M2 is twice as intense as an M1, an M3 is three times as intense, etc. The flare also generated a solar energetic particle eruption that was detected by NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory-Ahead, or STEREO-A spacecraft, at 7:51 UTC (3:51 a.m. EDT).
Active Region 2882, shown here near the middle of the Sun’s disk, erupted with a moderate level solar flare on Oct. 9, 2021. This animated gif shows images from the 131 Angstrom channel of NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft/Atmospheric Imaging Assembly instrument. Credit: NASA/SDO
STEREO-A also detected the CME from its vantage point away from Earth. The CME’s initial speed was estimated by NASA’s Moon to Mars Space Weather Operations Office to be approximately 983 kilometers per second (610 miles per second). This and other information about the event is reported in the Space Weather Database Of Notifications, Knowledge, Information (DONKI) catalog.
The COR2 coronagraph on NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory-A spacecraft, which views the Sun’s corona by occluding its bright surface, detected this Earth-directed CME on Oct. 9, 2021. Credit: NASA/STEREO
NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center is the official source for space weather forecasts, watches, warnings and alerts. Visit http://spaceweather.gov for information about potential impacts from this event.
The Sun emitted a significant solar flare peaking at 10:29 a.m. EDT on July 3, 2021. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the Sun constantly, captured an image of the event.
This image comes from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly telescope/94 Angstrom channel, which shows solar material at about 10 million degrees Fahrenheit. Credits: NASA/SDO
Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth’s atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however – when intense enough – they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.
To see how such space weather may affect Earth, please visit NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center at http://spaceweather.gov, the U.S. government’s official source for space weather forecasts, watches, warnings and alerts.
This flare is classified as an X1.5-class flare.
X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength. An X2 is twice as intense as an X1, an X3 is three times as intense, etc.
