• 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

  • Fast growing sunspot 1199

    New sunspot 1199 is growing rapidly in the sun’s northern hemisphere, ballooning in area by more than a factor of five during the last 24 hours. If the expansion continues apace, this active region could soon pose a threat for flares. Stay tuned. (SpaceWeather)

  • Big sunspot 1195 harbors energy for M-class solar flares

    This detailed image of sunspot 1195 looks like it was taken by one of NASA’s most advanced space telescopes. In fact, it comes from someone’s backyard in the Netherlands. Scroll down for the full story, and carefully examine the starscape as you

  • Amazing B-class solar flare

    B-class eruptions are weak and generally not considered spectacular, but the one recorded by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) on April 23rd was quite different:The blast hurled hundreds of thousands of tons of plasma above the stellar surface with a powe