During a close approach to the Sun, the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter watched that tipping point unfold in unusually fine detail. The spacecraft observed the M7.7-class flare—strong but still ...

"This is one of the most exciting results from Solar Orbiter so far." ...

Solar physicists have long known that the sun stores staggering amounts of magnetic energy, but the exact trigger that lets ...

Scientists watched a solar flare grow from tiny magnetic sparks into a violent plasma-raining avalanche on the Sun.

Just as avalanches on snowy mountains start with the movement of a small quantity of snow, the ESA-led Solar Orbiter ...

The world's largest solar telescope just captured the highest-resolution images of a solar flare to date — and they're spectacular. Researchers trained the Hawaii-based Daniel K. Inouye Solar ...

F or all of its life-sustaining energy, the sun is pretty chaotic. Roiling plasma covers its surface along with fluidic snarls of magnetic fields that birth solar flares. These fiery outbursts occur ...

Scientists from the University of St Andrews have discovered that ions in solar flares can reach scorching temperatures more than 60 million degrees—6.5 times hotter than previously believed. This ...

The sun is not a static, tranquil sphere of gas, but an active, turbulent star with magnetic fields that twist and snap in powerful eruptions. Among the most striking and energetic of these eruptions ...

This was the view as a multi-colored curtain of aurora formed to the south in my sky during the great display of Northern Lights on May 10, 2024. The Kp Index peaked at 8 this night bringing the ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. An award-winning reporter writing about stargazing and the night sky. A spot on the sun 10 times larger than Earth has been seen ...