This Feb. 4, 2026, image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captures a strong solar flare erupting from the star.

Northern lights occur when a solar flare interacts with Earth's atmosphere.

Close-up observations of the Sun explain how solar flares start, grow, and send high-energy particles racing through space.

Solar flares, the sudden bursts of radiation that erupt from the Sun’s atmosphere, have become a topic of intense scrutiny for scientists. The potential of these flares to disrupt power grids and ...

A strong solar flare peaked just after 9 a.m. Tuesday. What does that mean?

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 ...

Just as avalanches on snowy mountains start with the movement of a small quantity of snow, the ESA-led Solar Orbiter spacecraft has discovered that a solar flare is triggered by initially weak ...

For the first time, scientists believe they have captured direct evidence of the mechanisms that trigger a solar flare. These massive explosions, generated by the Sun, release staggering amounts of ...

The Sun looks like a warm yellow sphere with a surface covered with glowing messy hair. The yellow glow extends to the edges of the image, with some regions brighter than others. Many bright yellow ...

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 ...

The Sun has just delivered one of its most forceful reminders that space weather is not an abstract concept but a real-world disruptor. An intense X-class solar flare blasted the dayside of Earth, ...

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 ...