A group of participants from several U.S. agencies took part in a first-of-its-kind exercise that tested their preparedness for a severe solar storm, revealing major cracks in scientists’ ability to forecast space weather—which could put crucial systems at risk. The Space Weather Operations, Research, and Mitigation (SWORM) task force, an inter-agency group that includes the […]
Scientists Discover a Massive, Glowing Blob of Hydrogen Very Close to Our Solar System
The birthplace of stars begins within large, cold clouds of gas and dust, which eventually collapse under the weight of gravity. Molecular clouds are vast cosmic entities that often stretch for hundreds of light-years, and scientists just discovered a massive one lurking in our celestial neighborhood. The cloud, named Eos after the Greek goddess of […]
This Is the Highest-Resolution Portrait of the Sun We’ve Ever Seen
Five years into its mission, NASA and ESA’s Solar Orbiter just snapped what might be the crispest, most detailed full-Sun view humanity has ever seen. The shot above—in all its mesmerizing, dull-yellow grandeur—captures our Sun’s million-degree corona in ultraviolet light. Taken on March 9, 2025, from about 47.8 million miles (77 million kilometers) away, this […]
A Mission to Take Sick Images of the Sun Got Its First Test Shots Back
Check out the vibrant first photo from PUNCH, a NASA mission that is hitting the ground running with some neat shots of the Sun. PUNCH—short for the Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere—launched into low-Earth orbit last month, and its just taken its first images in what will hopefully be a fruitful period of […]
A Double Sunblast Could Mean Auroras Over the U.S. This Week
According to the experts at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, two coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are en route to Earth, and they could be bringing a glowing gift: a potential auroral display reaching farther south than usual—possibly lighting up skies over parts of the northern U.S., like New York and Idaho. This space weather alert […]
Wild Video Shows Solar Winds Spiraling Millions of Miles From the Sun
Behold, the piping host particles of solar wind streaming from our Sun, caught in new footage from the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter. The video was captured by the orbiter’s Metis instrument, a coronagraph which blocks light directly from the Sun in order to see fainter phenomena in its outer atmosphere, or corona. New research describing the […]
Solar Orbiter Captures Incredible Footage of Tiny Jets Near the Sun’s South Pole
For nearly five years, a Sun-observing probe has been making close approaches to the Sun, capturing close-up views of the star’s polar regions to collect clues about its magnetic activity, corona, and atmosphere. During two recent flybys, Solar Orbiter spotted tiny jets of material that appear as thin, hair-like strands brightly flashing near the Sun’s […]
The Sun Does Something Weird Right Before It Unleashes Solar Flares
Intense solar flares—sudden bursts of electromagnetic radiation from the Sun—can shoot out hazardous levels of energy strong enough to reach Earth’s atmosphere. Predicting solar flares, however, isn’t as simple as forecasting a sunny day. A team of researchers co-led by heliophysicist Emily Mason of Predictive Sciences Inc. has identified a type of solar activity within […]