Solar Storm

Home News Photographer Dakota Snider caught the auroras from his airplane window, while his fellow passengers slept early Friday morning. (Image credit: Dakota Snider) The strongest solar storm to hit Earth for six years sparked stunning auroras across the U.S., with intense light displays appearing as far south as Alabama…

One of the North's greatest draws and most iconic phenomena could spell trouble for a growing renewable energy sector. Solar storms that produce vibrant northern lights also create an electrical current in the ground that can cause transformers — a component of traditional energy infrastructure — to overheat. Transformers increase or decrease the voltage of electricity…

Spacecraft monitoring the Sun for potentially deadly solar storms have been degrading – and now scientists think they've worked out why. Boffins at America's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) have spent years trying to figure…

Home News Skywatching Purple aurora glow seen above the horizon from California's Death Valley. (Image credit: Shari Hunt) The powerful solar storm that struck Earth earlier this week treated an American astrophotographer to unexpected aurora displays during a shooting trip to California's Death Valley.  The sighting, documented in this beautiful…

Home News Skywatching A photograph of Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) shows a breakage in its signature tail that is likely caused by space weather. (Image credit: Michael Jaeger) An image taken by an Austrian comet hunter reveals a disconnection in a stunning green comet's tail that may have been caused…

Home News (Image credit: Markus Varik/Greenlander)An explosion of extremely rare pink auroras recently lit up the night sky above Norway after a solar storm slammed into Earth and ripped a hole in the planet's magnetic field. The breach enabled highly energetic solar particles to penetrate deeper into the atmosphere than…

Home News Science & Astronomy If you're seeking something unsettling from space this October, an audio track of converted data released by the European Space Agency (ESA) provides a disturbing sonic representation of the Earth's magnetic field under attack.  Earth's magnetic field is generated by superheated, swirling liquid iron in…

Home News Science & Astronomy NOAA's National Weather Service has issued a G1 (minor) geomagnetic storm watch for Saturday (Oct. 29). (Image credit: NASA/SDO) The sun appears very 'happy' today in NASA's latest Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) images. But don't be fooled by its cheery appearance  —  that 'face' is…

Home News Lifes-little-mysteries NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare — as seen in the bright flash on the top right — on Oct. 2, 2022. The image shows a subset of extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the extremely hot material in flares and which is…

muratart/Shutterstock Sometimes we can forget just how gigantic and powerful the sun really is, especially when it appears to us as just a small orb in the sky. However, there's a lot going on within the sun that can have repercussions felt throughout the entire solar system. It is, of…