• Moderate geomagnetic storm is in progress

    A solar wind stream is buffeting Earth’s magnetic field, sparking Southern Lights around the Antarctic Circle. Ian Stewart sends this picture to SpaceWeather.com from a jetty near Hobart, Tasmania:”Not long after sunset a friend rang to ask whether a faint arc of

  • Sundiving comet and coronal mass ejection

    A comet dove into the sun on May 11th and seemed to trigger a massive eruption. Watch the movie, then scroll down for further discussion.

    A comet goes in; a CME comes out. Coincidence? Probably, yes, the sequence was coincidental. The comet disintegrated

  • Comet hit the Sun?

    A comet just discovered by amateur astronomer Sergey Shurpakov is diving past the sun today, and it will probably not survive. Click here to view a movie of the death plunge recorded by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory–and check back for updates in the hours

  • Spectacular CME, active region approaching Earth

    A sunspot located just behind the sun’s eastern limb erupted during the waning hours of May 9th, hurling a spectacular coronal mass ejection into space: movie. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory photographed hot magnetic loops towering over the edge of the sun in the

  • Subsiding geomagnetic storm (May 04, 2012)

    Earth is exiting a solar wind stream that has been stirring up geomagnetic storms around Earth’s poles since April 29th. Over the past few nights, observers have seen auroras over the South Pole, Germany, Wisconsin andMichigan. The chances for more auroras are

  • Geomagnetic storm in progress

    The geomagnetic field was unsettled to active at mid latitudes. Minor to major storm conditions occurred at high latitudes due to Coronal Hole (CH) high-speed stream (HSS) effects. Solar winds speeds were sustained above 620 km/s during the period. The greater than 2

  • Wonderful weekend auroras for start of May

    It has been a good weekend for northern sky watchers. A solar wind stream hit Earth’s magnetic field on Saturday, sparking two days of auroras around the Arctic Circle. In Alberta, Canada, this morning, the month of May began with a psychedelic sky:High-latitude

  • Geomagnetic storm in progress (April 30, 2012)

    A solar wind stream hit Earth’s magnetic field during the early hours of April 30th, sparking a high-latitude geomagnetic storm (slowly subsiding). In the United States, auroras descended as far south as Marquette, Michigan, where Shawn Malone took this picture before

  • Solar winds blowing earthward from Sun’s new coronal hole

    NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory is monitoring a hole in the sun’s atmosphere – a “coronal hole.” It is the dark region circled in this extreme ultraviolet image taken during the early hours of April 28th: Coronal holes are places where the sun’s magnetic field