A heavy space probe is falling to Earth today (March 10), eight years earlier than expected, according to NASA.

The 1,300-pound (600 kilograms) Van Allen Probe A should mostly burn up as it enters Earth's atmosphere, but some components are expected to remain intact. The spacecraft poses a low risk to humans, with a 1-in-4,200 chance of it causing harm, NASA said in a statement released Monday (March 9).

U.S. Space Force calculations have the probe reentering Earth's atmosphere at about 7:45 p.m. EDT today, according to NASA. However, that prediction carries a 24-hour margin of error, so the reentry could have happened already. As of this writing, there have been no reports of a reentry.

Intense solar activity is forcing the probe down much earlier than initially forecast. When the spacecraft ran out of fuel in 2019, NASA predicted it would remain in orbit until 2034. However, that was before the sun entered its current solar cycle in late 2019, and that cycle has been much more active — and peaked sooner — than scientists expected.

The sun's roughly 11-year cycle peaks with an explosive period of activity known as solar maximum, which triggers more intense space weather events. These events created more atmospheric drag for the fuelless Van Allen Probe A, pulling it out of orbit.

Van Allen Probe A is one of two Van Allen Probes that have been in space for almost 14 years. NASA launched the satellites in 2012 to study Earth's two permanent radiation belts, which were named after American physicist James Van Allen.

The radiation belts are made up of charged particles trapped by Earth's magnetic field. They essentially act as natural shields, protecting Earth from cosmic radiation, solar storms and solar wind.

The Van Allen Probes were designed for a two-year mission but ended up lasting around seven years. The mission eventually ended in 2019, when the probes ran out of fuel. Van Allen Probe A's twin, Van Allen Probe B, is expected to stay in space until 2030, according to NASA.

The probes made a series of scientific discoveries during their tenure. For example, the spacecraft found that electrons in the radiation belts can be accelerated to near light speed by surfing on waves of plasma ejected from the sun. They also detected a third radiation belt that forms only during periods of intense solar activity.

After nearly four years of being covered in dark blotches like an acne-covered teenager, the sun's face has suddenly turned smooth for consecutive days, hinting that solar activity is on the decline. But while this surprising "spotless" spectacle is a sign of things to come, it's still too soon to let our guard down, experts warn.

On Sunday (Feb. 22), there were zero visible sunspots on the Earth-facing side of the sun for the first time since June 8, 2022, Live Science's sister site Space.com reported. This "spotless day" ended a 1,335-day-streak of consecutive sunspot sightings, throughout which there has been a constant and looming threat that one of these dark patches may shoot out a potentially dangerous solar storm that could later hit Earth.

This unexpected development continued throughout Monday (Feb. 23) and Tuesday (Feb. 24), which were also spotless, according to Spaceweather.com. But on Wednesday (Feb. 25), a pair of sunspots from the sun's far side rotated into view across our home star's eastern limb, reestablishing the perpetual threat of an incoming solar storm.

The blemish-free solar disk was surprising given that we have only recently emerged from solar maximum — the peak in the sun's roughly 11-year solar cycle, when sunspots litter the solar surface and constantly spit out solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs).

In recent weeks, we have also been hit by a major solar radiation event and witnessed one of the most explosive sunspots of the current solar cycle, which makes the sudden turn of events even more confusing.

But don't let the sun's facade fool you, because the current cycle (Solar Cycle 25) is far from over and we are almost guaranteed to see some more space weather events before our home star transitions to a more permanent state of spotlessness.

"Solar Cycle 25 still has years of life left in it," Spaceweather.com representatives wrote. "However, these spotless days tell us that the current cycle is waning," they added.

Counting sunspots

Sunspots appear when the sun's magnetic field is unstable, which happens in and around solar maximum, when the solar magnetic field completely flips . This makes the dark patches a key indicator of solar cycle progression.

The sudden and sharp rise of sunspots in early 2022 was the first clue that solar maximum would arrive sooner than official forecasts initially suggested, which turned out to be the case. The peak of Solar Cycle 25 (SC25) has also been much more active than expected, with the average number of sunspots climbing to 215.5 in August 2024 — the highest monthly total in more than 23 years.

Over the last few years we have also seen a record number of X-class flares explode from sunspots (partially due to an advance in solar observation technology), and been hit by several major solar storms, including the famous Mothers' Day storm of 2024, which briefly disrupted GPS technology and triggered some of the most widespread auroras in centuries.

Solar maximum likely ended sometime in early 2025 and, despite recent surges in solar activity, the sun is starting to quiet down. For example, there was an average of 112.6 sunspots in January, which is almost half of 2024's peak, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center. But even accounting for this downward trend, it is still very surprising to see consecutive spotless days so soon in the current cycle.

Normally, we'd have to wait for the sun's weakest phase, dubbed solar minimum, to see consecutive spotless days. For example, there were more than 700 spotless days between 2018 and 2020, around the last solar minimum, according to Spaceweather.com.

More to come

Several experts, including Scott McIntosh — the VP of space operations at Lynker Space and former deputy director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, who was one of the first solar physicists to accurately forecast SC25 — have previously told Live Science that solar activity can remain unusually high in the years following solar maximum.

Recent research by Lynker Space has also revealed that the years after solar maximum, dubbed the "battle zone," can be even more chaotic than a cycle's peak, due to instability between different parts of the sun's newly flipped magnetic field: "The potential for large, dangerous geomagnetic storms in the next few years is very real," McIntosh told Live Science in December 2024.

The magnetic configuration of sunspots is more important than their size or frequency when determining how risky they are, meaning that the next big storm could theoretically come from almost any of them, according to The Planetary Society.

The worst-case-scenario is that we are hit by a superstorm on par with the Carrington Event of 1859 — the most extreme space weather event in recorded history, which erupted during a solar cycle similar to SC25. Such a storm has the capacity to wipe out almost every satellite orbiting Earth and cause significant damage to the energy infrastructure on our planet's surface.

A recent study, published in October 2025, estimated that there is roughly a 5% chance that such an event could occur in the next decade. We have also already seen several Carrignton-size sunspots during the current cycle, although none of them have been as active.

All this goes to show that, just like a good book, we shouldn't judge the sun purely by its cover.

Sun quiz: How well do you know our home star?

A record-breaking study into a giant sunspot that triggered Earth's biggest geomagnetic storm in more than two decades has revealed surprising new details about the explosive dark patch. The monster sunspot unleashed almost 1,000 solar flares in just over three months, and may have discreetly birthed the most powerful outburst of the current solar cycle.

Back in April 2024, astronomers spotted a growing group of sunspots on the solar surface. This new active region (AR), dubbed AR 13664, quickly swelled in size, eventually reaching a diameter 15 times wider than Earth by early May. It then quickly unleashed a barrage of X-class solar flares — the most powerful type of solar explosion — that fired a series of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) toward Earth, which successively slammed into our planet's magnetic field.

This triggered a G5-level ("extreme") geomagnetic storm between May 10 and May 13, which was the most powerful of its kind since 2003 and painted widespread auroras around the globe.

But the giant sunspot's journey didn't end there. Like other massive sunspots, AR 13664 was able to survive several trips around the sun, which enabled researchers to keep tabs on it for longer than usual — and it put on quite the show. (Sunspots only remain visible on the sun's Earth-facing hemisphere for up to two weeks at a time before rotating out of view, but they reappear if they survive the trip across our home star's far side.)

In a new study published Dec. 5 in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, researchers analyzed observations of AR 13664 spanning 94 consecutive days between April 16 and July 18, 2024, which equates to roughly 3.3 trips around the sun. Thanks to images captured by NASA's Solar Orbiter, which circles the sun, researchers were able to keep tabs on the sunspot as it rotated out of view.

"It’s a milestone in solar physics," study lead author Ioannis Kontogiannis, a solar physicist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich), said in a statement. "This is the longest continuous series of images ever created for a single active region."

In the paper, the team revealed that AR 13664 unleashed a total of 969 solar flares. This included 38 X-class flares and 146 M-class flares, which are also capable of impacting Earth's magnetic field. The rest were lower-level, including C-class and B-class flares, which pose no threat to our planet. Most of the biggest flares were directed away from Earth, which is why more geomagnetic storms did not occur.

The largest flare was a suspected X16.5 magnitude blast, which occurred on the sun's far side from Earth on May 20, 2024. That’s significantly more powerful than an X9 blast that occurred on Oct. 3, 2024, which is currently listed as the most powerful flare of the last 8 years. However, as AR 13664's blast was partially obscured by its location on the sun, researchers cannot officially declare a new record.

AR 13664's epic journey around the sun is a reminder of the immense power of our home star, especially during solar maximum — the most active phase of the sun's roughly 11-year solar cycle, when the number of sunspots and solar storms sharply rises.

We have likely just finished the most recent solar maximum, which started in early 2024, much earlier than scientists initially predicted it would. This peak phase was also much more active than previous maxima, with a 23-year peak in visible sunspots and a record number of X-class flares in 2024.

The researchers behind the new study note that studying these events can help scientists to better predict similar events in the future, which is important as they can impact Earth-orbiting spacecraft as well as some ground-based infrastructure.

"We live with this star, so it's really important we observe it and try to understand how it works and how it affects our environment," Kontogiannis said.

NASA scientists are warning that the sun may be "waking up" from a brief period of relative inactivity, contradicting past assumptions about our home star. If true, this could mean that decades of potentially dangerous space weather are in store.

The sun follows a roughly 11-year cycle of solar activity that begins with a prolonged quiet period, known as solar minimum, and builds toward an explosive peak, known as solar maximum — when our home star frequently spits out powerful solar storms at us. This pattern is known as the "sunspot cycle," because the number of dark patches on the sun's surface rises and falls with solar activity. The sunspot cycle is, in turn, governed by a longer 22-year cycle, known as the Hale Cycle — during which the sun's magnetic field entirely flips and then reverses back again.

But in addition to the sunspot and Hale cycles, the sun also experiences long-term fluctuations in solar activity that can span multiple decades and are much harder to predict or explain. Examples include periods between 1645 to 1715, known as the Maunder Minimum, and between 1790 and 1830, known as the Dalton Minimum, when solar activity was generally much lower throughout successive sunspot cycles.

Back in the early 2000s, downward trending solar activity led some scientists to believe that we were possibly entering a new "deep solar minimum." This theory gained traction after the last solar maximum, between 2013 and 2014, which was much weaker than previous cycles. However, the current sunspot cycle, which has just peaked, has massively upended this theory.

In a new study, published Sept. 8 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, researchers analyzed multiple metrics of solar activity, including solar wind, magnetic field strength and sunspot numbers, and found that they have been on an upward trend since around 2008, and could rise further over future cycles, suggesting that the deep solar minimum theory is well and truly dead.

Related: 10 supercharged solar storms that blew us away in 2024

"All signs were pointing to the sun going into a prolonged phase of low activity," study lead author Jamie Jasinski, a plasma physicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, said in a NASA statement. "So it was a surprise to see that trend reversed. The sun is slowly waking up."

We are currently coming towards the end of the sun's most recent solar maximum, which officially began in early 2024, and it has not played out as expected.

When the current sunspot cycle began in late 2019, experts from the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) — which includes scientists from NASA and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) — predicted that solar maximum would most likely begin sometime in 2025 and be comparable to the previous weaker cycle.

However, as the current cycle progressed, it quickly became clear that this was not the case and that solar maximum would arrive sooner and be much more active than initially predicted. SWPC scientists later acknowledged their mistake, issuing their first-ever updated forecast, which came just in time for solar maximum's arrival.

Since then, the sun has reached its highest number of sunspots in more than 20 years and spat out a record number of powerful X-class flares — the most powerful type of explosion the sun is capable of producing.

During the current maximum, Earth has also been hit by several major geomagnetic storms, or disturbances to the planet's magnetic field. The most noteworthy was an "extreme" event in May 2024, which triggered some of the most vibrant aurora displays in centuries and caused over $500 million in damages.

Now, the new study warns that what we have witnessed over the past few years will likely become the "status quo" over the next few decades. This could be especially problematic because humanity has become much more reliant on technologies that are prone to interference from space weather, such as power grids, GPS-controlled machinery and Earth-orbiting satellites, which can be knocked out of the sky by solar storms.

It is currently unclear why the sun experienced a blip in solar activity over the last few decades or what may be driving its current resurgence: "The longer-term trends are a lot less predictable and are something we don't completely understand yet," Jasinski said.

Another study from earlier this year proposed that the recent surge in activity could be part of a lesser-known and understudied 100-year solar cycle, known as the Centennial Gleissberg Cycle. However, the newest study does not mention this at all.

A gigantic, backwards "letter S" recently appeared slap bang in the middle of the sun, moments before our home star unleashed a massive plume of plasma that later smashed into Earth, temporarily disrupting our planet's magnetic field.

The bizarre S-shaped structure, which bears a resemblance to the iconic symbol of Superman, took shape on Sept. 4, less than an hour before an M-class solar flare launched a giant magnetized cloud of plasma stretching up to 435,000 miles (700,000 kilometers) across, Spaceweather.com reported. This plasma plume, known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), appeared dark against the sun's surface because its plasma is significantly cooler than its surroundings, similar to why sunspots appear black.

This "dark eruption" smashed into Earth's magnetic field, or magnetosphere, on Sunday (Sept. 7), temporarily disturbing our planet's protective shield. This disturbance, known as a geomagnetic storm, occurred around the same time as a "blood moon" total lunar eclipse, which was visible across large parts of the globe. However, the storm only reached G1 (minor) status, meaning it did not generate many visible auroras in the U.S. or at similar latitudes, according to Live Science's sister site Space.com.

This rare type of solar outburst is known as a "sigmoid eruption," named after the Greek letter sigma, which corresponds phonetically to "S" in English. In this case, the "S" appeared just above the sun's equator, right in the center of the hemisphere facing Earth, and was roughly 78,000 miles (125,000 km) across at its widest point — around 10 times the diameter of Earth.

Related: A mysterious, 100-year solar cycle may have just restarted — and it could mean decades of dangerous space weather

Sigmoid eruptions occur when the localized magnetic fields surrounding sunspots get twisted up "like a slinky" at each end of the bar that runs through their center, causing the entire structure to snake, according to Spaceweather.com.

The shape makes it almost certain that the sunspot will create a solar flare because the magnetic field holding it together more readily snaps when the opposite ends of the magnetic field are closer together, flinging plasma away from the sun in the process, Spaceweather.com representatives added. "When you see an 'S' on the sun, it usually means something is about to explode," they wrote.

A similar structure was also seen shortly before a supercharged X9.3 magnitude solar flare in September 2017, which, at the time of the event, was the most powerful solar explosion in almost a decade, according to a 2024 study.

Researchers first noticed the explosive potential of sigmoid eruptions in the late 2000s. However, they are still trying to work out exactly what causes them to take this shape.

The classical explanation for the S shape is that it emerges when two J-shape structures — the most common shape that precedes solar flares — merge end-to-end into a single entity. However, a 2022 study hinted that it is more likely that a single J-shape structure is transformed into an S via "slipping" of its associated magnetic field.

Increased solar activity

Solar activity has been peaking over the last few years due to the solar maximum — the most active phase of the sun's roughly 11-year solar cycle, when the number and size of sunspots and solar storms rise sharply.

This explosive peak was initially predicted to be fairly tame compared to recent solar maxima. However, the initial forecasts were inaccurate, and the current maximum arrived early and has been far more active than expected.

Solar maximum has now likely come to an end. However, solar activity is expected to remain relatively high in the coming months due to continued instability within our home star's magnetic fields.

The last few weeks have seen a mini-resurgence in space weather events, including a giant "solar tornado" that raged above the sun's surface for several days in late August, and a "cannibal" CME that painted auroras above multiple U.S. states on Labor Day (Sept. 1).

A "cannibalistic" solar storm is about to slam into Earth's magnetic field, triggering vibrant auroras that will potentially be visible in up to 18 different U.S. states, just in time for Labor Day.

On Saturday (Aug. 30), sunspot 4204, located near the sun's equator, unleashed a long-duration, M-class solar flare — the second most powerful type of eruption our home star's surface is capable of producing. The M2.7 magnitude blast, which occurred over more than 3 hours, also spat out a fast-moving cloud of magnetized plasma, known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), which NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft revealed was "heading straight for Earth," according to Spaceweather.com.

However, less than 24 hours later, further analysis of the Earthbound solar storm revealed that it was actually made up of two different CMEs that had been ejected back-to-back during the flare, space weather expert and forecaster Tabitha Skov, wrote on X. Since then, the second and largest of the two plasma clouds has caught up to and consumed the first, creating a larger and more chaotic mass, known as a cannibal CME, that will hit Earth's magnetic field in the later hours of today (Sept. 1).

When the conjoined solar storms arrive, the resulting impact will temporarily disrupt our planet's protective shield, allowing charged particles to penetrate deep into the atmosphere where they can excite gas molecules and trigger the Northern Lights.

The disturbance, known as a geomagnetic storm, will likely reach G2 (moderate) class, but could also escalate to a G3 (strong) storm at its peak, according to a recent forecast from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center.

Related: A mysterious, 100-year solar cycle may have just restarted — and it could mean decades of dangerous space weather

The resulting auroras will be visible much farther south in the U.S. than normal, potentially appearing in as many as 18 states. These will include Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine, South Dakota, Vermont, New Hampshire, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, New York, Wyoming, Iowa, Nebraska and Illinois, Live Science's sister site Space.com reported.

The auroras will likely be most visible in the early hours of tomorrow (Sept. 2) and will be clearest in areas away from major cities, where there is minimal light pollution. But if you cannot see them with the naked eye, you may still be able to photograph them.

Cannibal solar storms are rare. However, there have been several examples in recent years, including a significant event in December 2023 and another example in August last year.

There have also been several major geomagnetic storms in the last 18 months, including a supercharged G5 (extreme) disturbance in May 2024, which painted widespread auroras across the globe, scrambled GPS systems and birthed a new "radiation belt" around our planet. Experts have since revealed that the damages from this storm exceeded $500 million.

The recent peak in solar activity can be attributed to solar maximum — the most active phase of the sun's roughly 11-year solar cycle, when the number and size of sunspots and solar storms rise sharply.

Experts now believe that the current solar maximum has likely come to a close. However, there has been a mini-resurgence in activity in recent weeks, such as a giant solar tornado that raged on the sun's surface for multiple days in late August.

Solar activity will also likely remain high in the coming months and years due to continued instability within the sun's magnetic field.

A giant solar tornado and a massive plasma eruption were just raging on the surface of the sun at the same time — and a researcher has captured both in one spectacular image.

Although the solar events are unrelated, both are the result of disturbances in the sun's invisible magnetic field, with some plasma forced into a tornado shape and some plasma released in a towering eruption known as an eruptive prominence.

Maximilian Teodorescu, a researcher at the Institute of Space Science in Romania, captured both events happening simultaneously Wednesday (Aug. 20). He told Live Science that a large solar tornado is pretty rare and he's never seen one at the same time as an eruptive prominence.

Spaceweather.com reported that astronomers around the world have been monitoring the tornado on the sun's surface this week, with the earliest images emerging Sunday (Aug. 17). Solar tornadoes look like tornadoes on Earth, but the two phenomena have little in common otherwise, particularly when it comes to size.

"[The solar tornado is] about 130,000 kilometers [80,000 miles] high," Teodorescu said. "Basically a tenth of the diameter of the sun."

To put that into perspective, Earth is around 7,926 miles (12,756 km) wide, so this tornado is a little taller than 10 Earths stacked on top of each other. Solar tornadoes are typically around 15,500 to 62,000 miles (25,000 to 100,000 km) tall, so this one is a whopper.

Teodorescu estimated that the eruptive prominence was around 124,000 miles (200,000 km) wide. That's roughly similar in size to a giant solar prominence observed in July, which was estimated at more than 100,000 miles (165,000 km) across and nicknamed "The Beast."

Related: Astrophotographer snaps 'once-in-a-lifetime' shot of solar flare photobombing the ISS

Teodorescu first saw the solar tornado on the Global Oscillation Network Group (GONG) website Monday (Aug. 18). GONG, which is operated by the National Solar Observatory, has six identical solar telescopes that monitor the sun in almost real time from different countries around the world, allowing amateurs and professionals to stay updated on solar activity.

Teodorescu's wife and fellow Institute of Space Science researcher Eliza Teodorescu helped him align a telescope's field of view with the tornado so he could capture images of the event. The eruptive prominence then emerged, allowing him to snap both at the same time.

Earth's tornadoes are whipped up by intense winds and move around, while solar tornadoes are made of ionized gas (plasma) that's rooted in place. They are formally called tornado prominences, with regular prominences also held in place by magnetic fields.

Prominences are attached to the visible surface of the sun, or photosphere, and extend into the star's outer atmosphere, or corona, according to NASA. An eruptive prominence occurs when the magnetic field holding the plasma becomes unstable and bursts outward. (Lucky skywatchers got a chance to see prominences erupting in real time during the April 8 total solar eclipse last year.)

In many cases, the plasma released in a prominence then flies into space as a coronal mass ejection (CME). This type of solar storm can collide with Earth's magnetic field and create auroras, as well as disrupt our satellites and communication systems.

Maximilian Teodorescu noted that the eruptive prominence he photographed released a CME. But it isn't heading for us, so it won't result in any disruptions or northern lights displays, he said. Earth is, however, currently being buffeted by solar winds because of other solar activity, so auroras could be visible at high latitudes tonight, Live Science's sister site Space.com reported.

The sun is currently in the most active phase of its roughly 11-year solar cycle — known as solar maximum — when the star's magnetic field weakens and flips. Maximilian Teodorescu noted that there's a lot of solar activity to see even with a small telescope — provided it is safely equipped with a solar filter.

"It's the most dynamic thing you can actually see as both [an] amateur and a professional in the sky," he said.

A giant plasma plume dubbed "The Beast" was recently spotted dancing above the sun as it showered our home star with blobs of impossibly fast fire. The shapeshifting projection, which stretched more than 13 times wider than Earth, was the first of several sizable solar structures to emerge in recent days.

The animalistic mass appeared Saturday (July 12) over the northwestern limb of the sun, allowing photographers from around the world to snap some stunning shots, including Michael Jäger, who captured the plume from Martinsburg in Austria (see above); and Simon Metcalfe, who saw it from near his home in Gloucestershire, England (see below).

Astrophotographer Daid Wilson also captured an amazing movie of the entire event from Inverness in Scotland, revealing that the morphing plume stretched more than 100,000 miles (165,000 km) across.

The plume was at its peak size for around three hours and constantly changed shape during this time. "It looks to me like some huge 4-legged beast shuffling along," Wilson told Spaceweather.com.

This quote was picked up on several social media outlets, including Reddit and X, leading people to refer to the plume as "The Beast."

Related: 10 supercharged solar storms that blew us away in 2024

The Beast is a solar prominence — a "bright feature extending outward from the sun's surface," made from ionized gas, or plasma, that is held in place by invisible magnetic field lines anchored to the solar surface, according to NASA.

These structures are usually small but can grow to be more than 1 million miles (1.6 million km) long and can be seen hovering around the sun's disk during eclipses, such as during the 2024 total solar eclipse over North America.

In the new images, smaller blobs of plasma can also be seen falling from The Beast toward the sun's surface. This is known as "coronal rain" and occurs when plasma cools and condenses, causing it to fall back to the sun's surface at extreme speeds as it travels along the invisible magnetic field lines.

Prominences, which commonly form in a looped horseshoe shape, can also unleash solar storms, such as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), when the magnetic fields that hold them up snap like an overstretched elastic band, flinging the plasma off into space. If these solar storms collide with Earth's magnetic field, they can trigger geomagnetic disturbances, which can cause radio blackouts, satellite disruption and vibrant aurora displays. But in this case, no CME was released, meaning The Beast poses no threat to our planet.

Two more large prominences have also appeared on the sun in recent days: First, on Monday (July 14), and then again on Tuesday (July 15). Both of these structures were larger than The Beast, with a much more traditional shape, and unleashed CMEs. However, due to the angle from which they were released from the sun, neither of the solar storms will hit Earth, according to EarthSky.org.

The recent flurry of activity is a reminder that the sun is currently nearing the end of the most active phase in its roughly 11-year sunspot cycle, known as solar maximum. During this period, magnetic instabilities make it much easier for chunks of plasma to break away from the solar surface.

An astrophotographer has captured a stunning shot of a powerful solar flare photobombing the International Space Station (ISS) as the human-inhabited spacecraft appeared to zoom across the surface of our home star.

Andrew McCarthy (aka Cosmic Background) snapped the incredible image on June 15 from a spot in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. He was initially planning to photograph a standard "transit" photo of the ISS passing directly between Earth and the sun. However, as McCarthy was setting up his camera, he noticed that one sunspot — dubbed AR4114 — had begun to "flare to life," he told Live Science.

Through a mix of skill and luck, McCarthy snapped the space station as it whizzed almost directly past the flaring sunspot, revealing superhot loops of glowing plasma, or solar prominences, moments before they were flung into space by a powerful explosion. Capturing both objects in a single frame makes this a "once-in-a-lifetime" photo, McCarthy wrote on the social platform X.

"Ever since I started chasing ISS [solar] transits, I've dreamed of catching one with an active flare," McCarthy told Live Science in an email. "When I saw the silhouette of the ISS flash through the frame, I knew it was something special."

Being separated from the sun by 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) shielded ISS astronauts from any potentially harmful radiation from the flare. This also makes the space station loom large in the photo. But in reality, the prominences were much larger, stretching up to five times wider than Earth's diameter. "Something about the small human elements against the scale and power of the sun feels like an inspiring scene," McCarthy added.

Related: 'Never been seen before': First images from new ISS solar telescope reveal subtle 'fluctuations' in sun's outer atmosphere

Solar flares are currently exploding from the sun more frequently than usual as the sun nears the end of the most active phase in its roughly 11-year sunspot cycle, known as solar maximum. During this period, magnetic instabilities make it much easier for chunks of plasma to break away from the solar surface.

The flare in the new photo is believed to be a powerful M8.46-magnitude blast that triggered a radio blackout across parts of North America as solar radiation temporarily disrupted the sea of plasma within Earth's ionosphere — the region of the atmosphere more than 30 miles (50 kilometers) above our planet's surface, according to Live Science's sister site Space.com.

Some of the plasma within the prominences also broke away from the sun entirely, forming a magnetized cloud of fast-moving particles known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), which glanced off Earth's magnetic field three days later.

McCarthy named the new photo "Kardashev Dreams" in honor of Nikolai Kardashev, a Soviet astronomer who famously proposed the Kardashev scale, which measures the technological advancement of a planetary civilization based on the amount of energy it can harness.

Photos like these are "a symbol of our first steps into a much larger universe," McCarthy said.

"Difficult" shot

Capturing the striking new photo was "much more difficult than I imagined," McCarthy said; to capture the best view of an ISS solar transit, you need to take the photo around midday, when the sun is directly overhead. And when you are taking the photo in the middle of a desert, as McCarthy did, this becomes very challenging, he added.

"Large telescopes, like the kind I need to use for these [photos], do NOT handle heat very well," McCarthy said. "Components flex and swell in the heat and currents of air of different temperatures swirl in the tube, making it nigh impossible to focus." Electrical components also start to overheat and shut down, he added.

To beat the heat, McCarthy strapped ice packs to the critical components of the camera to stop them from overheating and covered as much of the equipment in reflective foil as possible. "This kept the equipment barely working," he said.

Luckily, all the hard work paid off.

"This was the type of shot I've been chasing for so long, and I'm thrilled to add it to my portfolio," McCarthy said.

Skywatchers in up to 18 U.S. states could witness auroras in the coming days as a "moderate" geomagnetic storm rocks Earth's magnetic field, starting on Friday (June 13).

On Wednesday (June 11), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center issued an initial alert for a G2 (moderate) geomagnetic storm starting on Saturday (June 14). On Friday, the center released an updated warning that the storm could begin later the same day. The space weather event is predicted to end on Sunday (June 15) or Monday (June 16).

The disturbance has the potential to rise to a G3 (strong) geomagnetic storm over the weekend, according to Spaceweather.com, but this is not guaranteed. Some other outlets have reported that the storm could reach G4 (severe) status. However, these reports have likely arisen from confusion surrounding a statement from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, which was explaining what happened during a different G4 storm that occurred earlier this month, and the upcoming storm will not be anywhere near as intense.

Geomagnetic storms are disturbances to Earth's magnetic field, or magnetosphere, triggered by fluctuations in the solar wind. They are normally caused by giant clouds of magnetized particles from erupting solar flares, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs). However, in this case, the disturbance is being caused by a co-rotating interaction region — turbulence in the solar wind caused by fast-moving streams colliding with slower wind ahead of them — that originated from a large "coronal hole" on the solar surface.

These disturbances can squeeze Earth's magnetosphere, potentially causing widespread aurora displays at unusually low latitudes. They can also cause temporary radio blackouts, damage power infrastructure on the ground and cause satellites to fall from the sky as Earth's atmosphere soaks up excess energy and expands. (Geomagnetic storms are classified using a scale that ranks their intensity from G1 (minor) to G5 (extreme) — which is very rare.)

Related: The US isn't prepared for a big solar storm, exercise finds

The 18 states that could see auroras starting tonight are Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, South Dakota, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Wyoming, according to Live Science's sister site Space.com.

The aurora could also be seen in the U.K. and parts of Europe. However, there is no guarantee that you will see auroras if you live in these areas, as your view may be obscured by cloudy weather, haze from wildfires or light pollution.

Solar activity has been high in recent years thanks to solar maximum — the most active phase of the sun's roughly 11-year cycle of activity, when our home star's magnetic field completely flips. This phase began in early 2024, much earlier than initially predicted, and is likely now coming to a close. But solar activity could remain high for several years to come.

In May 2024, Earth experienced a G5 geomagnetic storm — the most powerful in 21 years, with some of the most widespread auroras in the last 500 years — after at least five different CMEs hit our planet in quick succession. This storm was so powerful that it caused tractors and other GPS-controlled machinery to dance from side to side across several U.S. states.

Just this once, it's OK to stare at the sun — provided you're looking at the European Space Agency's (ESA) newly released, history-making images of the solar south pole.

Taken near the sun on March 23 and revealed to Earthlings Wednesday (June 11), the new images from ESA's Solar Orbiter show a view of our star that no human or spacecraft has ever recorded before. While Earth and the other planets orbit relatively in line with the sun's equator on an invisible plane called the ecliptic, Solar Orbiter spent the last several months tilting its orbit to 17 degrees below the solar equator — bringing our star's enigmatic south pole into view for the first time ever.

"Today we reveal humankind's first-ever views of the Sun's pole," Carole Mundell, ESA's director of science, said in a statement. "These new unique views from our Solar Orbiter mission are the beginning of a new era of solar science."

The new images capture the solar pole in a broad swath of visible and ultraviolet wavelengths, using three of Solar Orbiter's 10 onboard instruments. The result is a colorful confetti of solar data, including an unprecedented look at the perplexing tangles of the sun's magnetic field as it prepares to flip, and the high-velocity movements of specific chemical elements as they ride plumes of plasma that make up the solar wind — the constant stream of charged particles that governs space weather throughout our solar system.

These data will help improve our understanding of the solar wind, space weather and the sun's roughly 11-year activity cycle for years to come, according to ESA.

But of particular interest right now, as the sun spits out flares in overdrive during its period of peak activity (called solar maximum), are the magnetic measurements taken with Solar Orbiter's Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI) instrument.

Related: NASA spacecraft snaps eerie image of eclipsed sun with an extra moon overhead. What's going on?

PHI's maps of the solar magnetic field highlight an intriguing paradox: While most magnets have a distinct north and south pole, the sun's south pole is roiling with both north and south polarity magnetic fields (shown as blue and red patches in the corresponding images).

According to ESA, this mess of magnetism is a temporary phenomenon that hints that the sun's magnetic field is about to flip, as it does once every 11 years or so. This magnetic reversal signifies the end of the high-activity solar maximum and begins a transition toward the relative calm of the next solar minimum. When the next minimum begins, approximately five to six years from now, the sun's poles should show only one type of magnetic polarity apiece as our star takes a break from launching violent space weather tantrums.

Solar Orbiter will have several more chances to test these predictions over the coming years. With a little help from the gravitational pull of Venus, Solar Orbiter will continue tilting its orbit further from the solar equator, reaching a tilt of 24 degrees in December 2026 and a whopping 33 degrees in June 2029. These ever-more-angular vantage points will expose the solar poles in even greater detail, improving our knowledge of our home star with every flyby.

"This is just the first step of Solar Orbiter's 'stairway to heaven'," Daniel Müller, ESA's Solar Orbiter project scientist, said in the statement. "These data will transform our understanding of the Sun's magnetic field, the solar wind, and solar activity."

Update: This article was updated at 9:30 a.m. ET on June 12 to alter the headline

A massive, "geriatric" sunspot is currently making its third trip across the sun's Earth-facing surface, around two months after it first appeared. The senior citizen has lasted far longer than most other solar blemishes and looks like it might persist for a while longer, potentially breaking a centuries-old sunspot longevity record.

The giant dark patch, currently named AR 14100, is located on the sun's northern hemisphere, just above the solar equator. It first emerged on April 5, when it was dubbed AR 14055, before disappearing from view as it rotated onto the sun's far side. It then reappeared on April 28, and was renamed AR 14079, before disappearing from view once again and reemerging on Monday (May 26) with a new name. (Sunspots get a new name every time they reappear on the sun's near-side to help researchers better track their space weather potential.)

The hefty spot has fluctuated in size as it's spun around our home star. It reached its maximum size in early May (when it was labeled AR 14079), spanning 87,000 miles (140,000 kilometers) across — roughly the equivalent of 11 times Earth's diameter. This made it the largest sunspot of 2025 so far, but it is now around half the size.

Most sunspots last only around a week, while some of the larger ones can sometimes survive long enough to reappear after transiting the sun's far side, which takes approximately two weeks. But it is rare for the dark patches to live any longer, even when they are this large. To compare it to human lifespans, AR 14100 is most definitely a "senior citizen," according to Spaceweather.com.

"Contact the AARP [formerly the American Association of Retired Persons]," Spaceweather.com representatives wrote. "Sunspot 14100 wants to join."

Related: 10 supercharged solar storms that blew us away in 2024

It is hard to tell what the record for the longest-lived sunspot is because historical data is far less accurate than what researchers currently collect using advanced spacecraft. For example, astronomers previously believed that a sunspot had persisted for 18 months between 1840 and 1841. However, a century later, scientists showed that this was actually multiple different sunspots appearing in the same place.

Instead, the longest lasting sunspot on record is most likely a dark patch from 1919, which lasted for 134 days (or more than four months), according to Spaceweather.com.

Although AR 14100 is smaller than it was two weeks ago, it shows no signs of disappearing completely, and has unleashed several solar flares since reemerging. But it would need to survive for another two or three months to break the longevity record. "It might," Spaceweather.com representatives wrote. "The sunspot is remarkably stable."

"I'm curious to see how long the sunspot will be with us," amateur astronomer Harald Paleske, who has photographed the sunspot multiple times from near his home in Germany, told Spaceweather.com. "This is its third run across the sun."

Sunspot mania

Sunspots appear when parts of the sun's magnetic field break through the solar surface. This makes them cooler than their surroundings, making them appear very dark via an optical illusion, even though they are only slightly dimmer than the rest of the sun.

We are currently in the midst of the most active phase of the sun's roughly 11-year cycle of activity, known as solar maximum, which began in early 2024 and is likely now coming toward an end. During this period, the number of sunspots also peaks as the sun's magnetic field becomes increasingly chaotic and disorganized before eventually flipping entirely.

The current cycle has been much more active than initially expected, and in August 2024, the average number of daily sunspots reached its highest monthly value in 23 years, peaking at 337 individual spots in a single day.

Scientists have seen several other massive sunspots during the current cycle, including one that was up to 15 times wider than Earth and a "sunspot archipelago" that was about the same size. These giant spots tend to emerge very quickly, swelling up to their full width in just a couple of days.

But while giant sunspots can spit out powerful solar storms capable of disrupting , such as the great Halloween solar storms of 2003, their size is no guarantee that they will be dangerous. Instead, it is their magnetic configuration that determines how likely they are to impact our planet.

Luckily, new technologies, such as the recently completed Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii, which recently captured the clearest-ever image of a sunspot, are helping researchers predict which spots will be most dangerous. Scientists are also using NASA's Mars rovers to spy on giant sunspots when they are pointed away from Earth.

Though we have seen some sizable dark patches sweeping across the sun in recent years, they pale in comparison to historic giants, including a whopping spot that covered up to 14% of the solar disk and spat out the Carrington Event — the most powerful solar storm ever witnessed by humans — in 1859.

Sun quiz: How well do you know our home star?

The unexpected surge of solar activity during the ongoing solar maximum may be tied to a lesser-known, 100-year-long cycle that is just beginning to ramp up again, a new study suggests.

If that's true, the next few decades could see further increases in solar activity that may threaten Earth-orbiting spacecraft and continue to trigger vibrant auroras across the globe. However, other experts are skeptical of the new findings.

Solar activity naturally waxes and wanes throughout the solar cycle — a roughly 11-year period in which our home star goes from being mostly calm in a phase called solar minimum to being a chaotic mass that frequently spits out powerful solar storms at solar maximum, and back again. This cycle is also known as the "sunspot cycle" because the number of dark patches on the sun rises and falls due to changes in the sun's magnetic field, which completely flips during solar maximum.

However, there are several other cycles that dictate solar activity. One example is the Hale cycle, which governs how individual magnetic bands move across the sun's surface and has recently been shown to influence the progression of the sunspot cycle. Historical records also show that the sun has experienced several long-term fluctuations in solar activity over the past few millennia. These included the Maunder Minimum — a period of greatly reduced solar activity between 1645 and 1715.

Another, lesser-known repeating pattern in solar activity is the Centennial Gleissberg Cycle (CGC) — a variation in the intensity of sunspot cycles that rises and falls every 80 to 100 years. The CGC is still poorly understood, but it is likely tied to "subtle sloshing" of the magnetic fields in each of the sun's two hemispheres that slightly alters the Hale cycle, Scott McIntosh, a solar physicist at the newly formed space weather solutions company Lynker Space, who was not involved in the research, told Live Science.

Related: 10 supercharged solar storms that blew us away in 2024

In the new study, published March 2 in the journal Space Weather, researchers suggest that the CGC might have just "turned over," or started again. This could also explain why the ongoing solar maximum, which officially began in early 2024, has ended up being much harder to predict than initially expected.

The study team came to this conclusion after analyzing changes to the "proton flux," or number of positively charged particles, in Earth's inner radiation belt — the first of two doughnut-shaped bands of charged particles surrounding our planet. Collectively, these bands are known as the Van Allen belts.

The inner belt's proton flux decreases when solar activity increases because of interactions with Earth's upper atmosphere, which swells as it soaks up more solar radiation. On the flip side, the proton flux increases as solar activity decreases.

The new analysis shows that the flux increased over the past 20 years but has just started decreasing over the past year or so. This suggests that we have "just passed the CGC minimum" and that average solar activity will start to rise again, study lead author Kalvyn Adams, an undergraduate researcher at JILA, a joint institute of the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, told Live Science.

The proton flux data were collected by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites as they passed through the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) — a mysterious dent in Earth's magnetic field above South America and the South Atlantic Ocean where our planet's protective shield is the weakest. This was a key reason these trends became apparent, the researchers said.

"The SAA is a region where the Earth's magnetic field is weak and allows trapped protons to reach lower altitudes," Adams said. This allows the NOAA spacecraft to "see into" the inner radiation belt without having to fly directly into it, which would be extremely tricky, he added.

Surprising solar activity

We may be nearing the end of the maximum phase of the current sunspot cycle, Solar Cycle 25 (SC25). This peak has been very active and has included some extreme space weather events, such as a supercharged geomagnetic storm in May 2024 that triggered some of the most widespread auroras in the past 500 years. However, this flourish of activity was not initially expected.

During the previous sunspot cycle, SC24, the sun was surprisingly quiet throughout solar maximum. This led space weather experts from NASA and NOAA to initially forecast that the same would happen during SC25, which they later admitted was a mistake.

The new research hints that SC24's lull was caused by the CGC minimum, likely making it the quietest sunspot cycle for around a century. If this is the case, then the unexpected activity of the current solar maximum means the sun is returning to "business as usual," McIntosh said.

Previous research had already suggested that the CGC may have played a role in the recent sunspot cycle confusion, including a 2023 study from members of Adam's research group and a 2024 paper that analyzed sunspot patterns with machine learning. However, the most recent findings are the first to suggest that the CGC minimum may be over.

The new study also suggests that the CGC may have a greater influence on the sunspot cycle than researchers previously realized, Adams said. As a result, solar cycle forecasters should "definitely" keep a closer eye on this phenomenon when predicting upcoming cycles, he added.

More to come?

If the CGC is turning over, then upcoming sunspot cycles will likely be as active as the current cycle and could eventually get stronger as we approach the CGC maximum, the researchers wrote.

"We just passed the CGC minimum, and it will be another 40 to 50 years before the CGC maximum," Adams told Live Science. "As a result, the next CGC maximum will likely occur around Solar Cycle 28."

Using "back-of-the-envelope calculations," we can assume that when this happens, solar activity could be around twice as high as it has been during the current maximum, Adams added. However, it is hard to tell for sure, because the CGC's effect on solar activity "can be a little inconsistent," he admitted.

Related: 15 dazzling images of the sun

If future solar maxima are more active than the ongoing peak, it could spell trouble for satellites, which can be knocked out of orbit as Earth's upper atmosphere swells. Several spacecraft have already fallen foul of this in the past few years. However, the problem could get worse in the coming decades due to the rapid expansion of private satellite "megaconstellations" that may be ill-equipped to deal with radiation spikes.

"Most [private] satellites usually take into account a model of the space climate when they are being made," Adams said. But they "are not considering the long-term variations that we are seeing."

Increased solar activity could also be a problem for astronauts, who are vulnerable to harmful radiation shooting out of our home star, Adams added. And there will likely be lots more people in space in the coming decades due to upcoming missions to the moon and Mars, as well as an increase in private spaceflight.

An uncertain future

But not everyone completely agrees with the new findings.

McIntosh, who was one of the first researchers to correctly forecast SC25 when he previously worked at the National Center for Atmospheric Research at CU Boulder, told Live Science that it is "too early" to make any firm conclusions about the CGC.

The main issue is that proton flux has only gone down over the past year, so it could just be a temporary dip caused by the natural variability of the sun, McIntosh said. As a result, the study team probably needs a couple more years of data for their results "to be definitive," he added.

There's also no baseline data for comparing CGC cycles, since satellites have only been able to accurately track proton flux over the past 30 to 40 years.

McIntosh also warned that the new study could be overestimating the effects of the CGC on the sunspot cycle, because we still don't know how the two cycles interact. At present, researchers are also struggling to agree on what the CGC is and how we define it, he added.

However, while McIntosh does not entirely agree with the new study, he did say it is "intriguing" and "well intentioned," and that the findings could help forecast the next sunspot cycle. While the CGC remains mysterious, it is likely "an intrinsic part of the [sunspot cycle] puzzle," he added.

We know that the sun has entered its peak phase of activity, called solar maximum. But are we still in it, or is solar maximum already behind us? Let's see what the data has to say.

Although we cannot see it with our bare human eyes, the sun is highly dynamic. On the sun's surface, regions of concentrated magnetic fields manifest themselves as dark sunspots. Above sunspots, active regions in the sun's atmosphere produce solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs), both of which can influence Earth via space weather.

However, the frequency of sunspots, solar flares and coronal mass ejections is not constant. Instead, it rises and falls throughout an 11-year solar cycle. At the bottom of this solar cycle, called solar minimum, months can pass without a single sunspot. At the peak of the cycle — called solar maximum — sunspots, flares and CMEs are commonplace.

We have tracked solar cycles for hundreds of years by counting the number of sunspots on the sun. Since December 2019, at the solar minimum marking the end of Solar Cycle 24, we have been in Solar Cycle 25. Cycles typically last around 11 years, but the exact duration between subsequent solar minimums varies from cycle to cycle.

Related: NASA's daredevil solar spacecraft survives 2nd close flyby of our sun

At the start of Solar Cycle 25, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center published its official solar cycle prediction, based on an average of predictions from the scientific community. The prediction anticipated that a solar maximum peak of 101.8 to 125.2 monthly sunspots would occur close to July 2025.

However, Solar Cycle 25 has already exceeded the predicted peak, reaching a 13-month smoothed monthly value of 156.7 in August 2024. The 13-month smoothed value of a given month is determined by the average of the specific month, with six months on each side of it (reaching 13 months total). Therefore, there is a six-month lag until this value is available, with August 2024 being the most recent data point as of March 2025.

This smoothed value will likely continue to rise, but it also depends on the sunspot totals in the coming months. It is the peak of this 13-month smoothed curve — not the highest individual month — that determines the peak of the solar cycle.

The graph above displays the solar cycle evolution from 2010 to present. The black line shows monthly sunspot values, and the purple represents the smoothed average. From this graph, we can see that Solar Cycle 25 (from 2019 to present) has already exceeded the size of Solar Cycle 24.

The largest individual sunspot month of the cycle so far, August 2024, had a sunspot total of 216. Since then, monthly totals have been much lower, ranging from 136 to 166 between September 2024 and March 2025. Is this a sign that solar maximum has already passed? Maybe, but maybe not.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center has an experimental solar cycle prediction graph that's currently publicly available in its online testbed. This experimental prediction is a rolling one; it updates each month as the most recent month of data becomes available. Because it is made using up-to-date data, and not a prediction from before any solar cycle data was available, it is far more accurate than the 2019 prediction — and perhaps the most accurate predictor we have for the remainder of the solar cycle.

The most recent version of this prediction, which was updated in March 2025, is presented below. Per this current prediction, solar maximum has most likely already passed, with a peak between August and November 2024. If this is true, then we could already be in the declining phase of Solar Cycle 25.

This solar maximum date is very different from the original prediction of July 2025. So how can this be? Not all solar cycles are exactly 11 years in length. In general, the larger the solar cycle, the shorter it is. Because the amplitude of our current cycle has already far exceeded the predicted peak, it is therefore likely that the true solar maximum date will also precede the original prediction.

So is that it, then? Has solar maximum already come and gone? Perhaps not. Looking back to the first solar cycle graph shown in this article, we see that Solar Cycle 24 had two peaks — one in 2012, and a second in 2014. This double peak rarely features in predictions, but it has been observed many times across historic solar cycles. Could Solar Cycle 25 exhibit a second peak, delaying solar maximum until later in 2025? It is certainly possible, although some may argue that we've already experienced two peaks, in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

These peaks are not as clearly separated as in previous solar cycles, but they do produce a clear inflection in the smoothed solar cycle curve. Ultimately, we will have to wait another year or so to know when the true peak of the solar cycle occurred.

Even if the specific monthly peak of the cycle has passed, it doesn't mean solar activity is over. Strong solar activity persists for a year or two beyond the maximum date, so we still have some time to enjoy sunspots, coronal mass ejections, and any geomagnetic storms and aurora shows associated with them.

Originally posted on Space.com.

Sun quiz: How well do you know our home star?

A newly released video has revealed a gigantic plume of solar wind towering above the sun in a never-before-seen, "cyclone-like" configuration that emerged in the wake of a massive solar explosion. The striking timelapse footage also captured strange lines streaking across the fiery scene like pixelated UFOs — but are actually distant stars.

The video, which was released March 26 by the European Space Agency (ESA), is sped-up footage originally taken over an eight-hour period on Oct. 12, 2022, by ESA's Solar Orbiter. The spacecraft captured the scene by blocking out the main disk of the sun, which enabled the probe's camera to focus on the extremely faint light given off by the flow of superfast charged particles, or solar wind, that streams out of our home star nearly constantly.

This is the first time solar wind has been recorded "flying out from the sun in a twisting, whirling motion," ESA representatives wrote in a statement. "The solar wind particles spiral outwards as if caught in a cyclone that extends millions of kilometres from the sun."

The striking video also shows around a dozen perfectly flat, half-dark, half-light lines that creep across the screen like the UFOs and aliens in arcade games such as "Space Invaders."

These features are actually stars that are moving across the background as the orbiter circles the sun, which show up thanks to an editing technique used to make the video, ESA representatives wrote.

Related: 10 supercharged solar storms that blew us away in 2024

Solar ‘pseudostreamer’

In a new study of the video, released March 26 in The Astrophysical Journal, researchers described the giant solar corkscrew as a "large pseudostreamer" that erupted near the sun's north pole in the wake of a solar flare that launched a cloud of plasma, or coronal mass ejection (CME), into space. The pseudostreamer reached up to 1.5 times as long as the sun is wide and lasted for around three hours.

The "helix" structure of the wind jet is likely the result of Alfvénic fluctuations triggered by waves of ions that oscillate in response to magnetic field disturbances that occurred during the flare, the researchers wrote. They noted that the unique shape may also be tied to the streamer's position near one of the sun's polar regions, where magnetic fields are usually much stronger than near the sun's equator.

The sun is currently experiencing the peak in its roughly 11-year cycle of activity, known as solar maximum, which officially began in early 2024. During this phase, powerful solar flares explode more frequently from the sun and solar wind intensifies. However, this video was captured before solar activity started ramping up, which surprised the scientists.

Until recently, the origin and complex behaviors of solar wind have remained largely elusive. But a new generation of spacecraft is helping to unravel these mysteries.

When the video was recorded, ESA's Solar Orbiter was the only probe capable of capturing solar wind in such great detail. However, ESA's Proba-3 mission, which launched in December 2024, is also capable of viewing solar wind thanks to its ability to create artificial solar eclipses in space. NASA's Parker Solar Probe, meanwhile, was launched in 2018 and has helped to capture important solar wind data during its recent super-close flybys of our home star.

Solar wind is expected to become more extreme over the next few years as we enter the solar "battle zone" — a period after solar maximum when magnetic instabilities on the sun cause large coronal holes to open up on the sun's surface and shoot out extreme solar gusts. These solar events will be much like a dark patch that showered Earth with charged particles last week, triggering significant aurora activity.

Sun quiz: How well do you know our home star?

A powerful solar outburst is predicted to graze Earth this weekend, potentially triggering power grid disruptions and making colorful auroras visible from much of the northern U.S.

The outburst, known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), erupted from the sun on Jan. 21 and is forecast to strike Earth's magnetic field late Friday night (Jan. 24) or early Saturday morning (Jan. 25), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center.

The impact could trigger a minor G1-class geomagnetic storm — a temporary disruption to Earth's magnetic field that can result in radio blackouts, power grid fluctuations, satellite malfunctions and other adverse effects. G1 events are the weakest class of geomagnetic storms and typically pass unnoticed by the vast majority of people.

However, every geomagnetic storm has the chance to push the northern lights to much lower latitudes than normal, potentially making the colorful skylights visible to millions of skywatchers in North America. If the solar storm hits this weekend, auroras could be visible in much of the northern U.S., including in northern Michigan and Maine, according to the NOAA aurora forecast.

Related: The 10 best stargazing events of 2025

Auroras occur when charged particles from the sun collide with Earth's magnetic field, or magnetosphere. These particles skate along our planet's magnetic-field lines toward the North and South poles, striking atmospheric molecules along the way. Those molecules then become energized, emitting energy in the form of colorful light. The color of auroral light depends on the type of molecules being energized, which is also linked to their altitude in the atmosphere.

To see an aurora near you, get as far away from artificial light sources as possible, using a dark-sky map if necessary. Let your eyes adjust to the darkness; then simply look up. You don't need stargazing binoculars or a powerful backyard telescope to see auroras, but the colors can appear brighter and crisper when viewed through a smartphone screen. That's because these devices are more sensitive to light than the human eye is, essentially letting more light in with a larger aperture.

If you don't catch this weekend's auroras, don't fret; all forms of solar weather, including CMEs and the resulting geomagnetic storms, happen more frequently during the peak of the sun's 11-year activity cycle, known as solar maximum. Our star has just entered this phase of its current cycle, astronomers announced in October 2024, and several years of heightened solar activity are likely to follow.

The number of X-class solar flares — the most powerful and potentially dangerous class of solar eruption — hit a new record high in 2024. The spike highlights that we are currently experiencing a surprisingly active solar maximum, which could continue to intensify this year.

But solar activity may not be the only reason the number of supercharged solar explosions skyrocketed last year, experts told Live Science.

There were a total of 54 X-class flares in 2024, according to SpaceWeatherLive.com, which maintains the oldest and most accurate publicly available dataset on solar flares. That is the highest total since at least 1996, when this dataset began. NASA has been tracking solar flare activity since the mid-1970s, but earlier data has not been made publicly available and is less reliable than modern records, SpaceWeatherLive.com representatives told Live Science in an email.

The previous record number of X-class flares in the dataset was 34, recorded in 2001, and only on four other occasions — in 2000, 2003, 2005 and 2014 — has the annual total risen above 20. So last year's total represents a surprisingly sharp spike in X-class flare frequency.

Related: 10 supercharged solar storms that blew us away in 2024

The effects of the more frequent X-class flares were widely felt on Earth in 2024. For example, in May, a quickfire succession of at least four X-class flares launched clouds of plasma, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), that slammed into Earth and sparked the strongest geomagnetic storm in 21 years, which in turn triggered some of the most vibrant and widespread aurora displays in our skies over the last 500 years.

So why was there such a big jump in X-class flares last year?

Increased solar activity

The obvious reason for the increased frequency is the arrival of solar maximum. This peak in the sun's roughly 11-year cycle of activity, which is triggered by the weakening and eventual flipping of the sun's magnetic field, has been surprisingly active so far and is expected to continue well into 2025 and possibly beyond.

In October 2024, scientists from NASA and the international Solar Cycle Prediction Panel (SCPP) announced that we have entered solar maximum and that the explosive peak likely started early last year, which was sooner than they had initially predicted.

The ongoing maximum has also proved to be more active than most scientists had initially forecast. For example, in August, the number of visible sunspots on our home star, which is a key metric for monitoring solar activity, reached a 23-year high.

But the number of X-class flares has been the biggest shock for most solar physicists. "I think we have all been surprised [about the number of flares]," Hugh Hudson, a solar physicist at the University of Glasgow in the U.K., told Live Science.

Some researchers like Hudson believe that the increase in X-class flares can be solely attributed to the increased activity during solar maximum. However, other experts think that although the sun's peak has undoubtedly played a key part in the spike, it is not the only reason. These researchers argue that the record number of observed X-class flares is also down to the fact we have gotten a lot better at spotting them, which is slightly throwing off the grading curve.

Spotting solar flares

Most X-class flares are pretty hard to miss, Scott McIntosh, a solar physicist and vice president of the new space weather solutions company Lynker Space, told Live Science. "These events are so massive they kinda smack you in the face," he said.

However, we cannot see them all, McIntosh added.

For starters, we can only properly see solar flares on the side of the sun facing Earth, although some farside explosions are so massive that we can still see the gigantic CMEs they hurl into space. This doesn't change much because we have only ever been able to see the sun's nearside eruptions. But it can also be hard to spot and properly measure solar flares around the edge of the sun's limbs because we cannot always see them properly.

This means we could historically have missed up to a further 15% of the sun's X-class flares, McIntosh said.

Related: 15 dazzling images of the sun

However, over the last few decades, scientists have launched several new spacecraft to monitor the sun, which have likely gotten better at spotting some of the flares that might previously have been missed, McIntosh said. "The new assets have highlighted how many events have been pointed away from us on Earth," he added.

It is also possible that we have previously missed some X-class flares that were right on the threshold between being rated X-class and M-class — the second-highest soflar flare category.

Carl Shneider, a space systems scientist at the University of Luxembourg and an advisor at private space weather forecasting company Mission Space, also believes that we are getting better at spotting X-class flares. "Advances in science and technology are continuously improving our ability to monitor solar activity and its impact on Earth's environment," Shneider told Live Science. "Every new mission, observational point, numerical model or theory improves our understanding."

However, these advances can also be a double-edged sword, because "this progress makes it hard to directly compare modern data with past observations," Shneider added.

But not everyone is convinced. Hudson, who has been studying solar flares for decades, believes that "the rules [for detecting X-class flares] have not changed" and says that we have likely missed "zero" of these outbursts over the last few solar cycles.

Is there more to come?

Solar maximum is expected to continue well into 2025 and potentially even into 2026, although we won't know when it ends until after it has happened. While solar maximum is often considered to be the most active phase of the solar cycle, the number of flares can remain high for several months or years after this phase ends.

New research also suggests that solar activity can peak a few years after solar maximum, during a period when different parts of the sun's magnetic field vie for dominance, which some researchers have dubbed the "battle zone."

"I think the record will continue to grow [over the next few years]," McIntosh, who is one of the main proponents of the battle zone concept, said. However, "we cannot really tell," he added.

Shneider also believes we have not yet seen the peak in solar activity and says, "The frequency of these events could remain high for several more years."

2025 has already started strong with three X-class flares in the first four days of the year, according to SpaceWeatherLive.com.

It is also possible that we could see much more powerful X-class flares in the coming years. The most powerful flare of the current solar cycle was an X9 magnitude blast on Oct. 3, 2024. But during the last two solar cycles, there have been 14 different X-class flares with a higher magnitude, despite flares being less frequent at the time.

Hudson said that increased frequency does not guarantee more powerful flares. "But I do think it is odd [that we haven't seen more powerful flares yet]," he added.

As millions of people across the U.S. recently looked up to the skies to witness widespread auroras dancing overhead, some farmers were left perplexed as their tractors seemingly started doing the same.

The malfunctioning vehicles, which have been unexpectedly swaying from side to side as they work the land, have been boogying to the beat of supercharged magnetic disturbances triggered by explosive solar storms, experts say. Simply put: Solar particles are tampering with the machines' GPS systems.

Solar activity has been way up this year thanks to solar maximum, the peak of the sun's roughly 11-year cycle, which scientists confirmed was officially well underway in October. As a result, solar flares have frequently erupted from the sun throughout 2024, and some of these explosions have also launched large clouds of plasma, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), at Earth. When these CMEs hit our planet, they can create massive disturbances in Earth's magnetic field, known as geomagnetic storms, potentially triggering radio blackouts and widespread aurora displays.

Between May 10 and May 12, Earth was hit by five consecutive CMEs, which triggered the most powerful geomagnetic storm in more than 21 years, and likely painted some of the most vibrant auroras over the last few centuries. This event was classed as an "extreme" G5 storm — the most powerful threshold these disturbances can reach.

During this supercharged storm, farmers across large parts of the U.S. reported some unusual activity with their tractors, which started "dancing" from side to side, Spaceweather.com recently reported.

Related: 32 stunning photos of auroras seen from space

"Our tractors acted like they were demon possessed," Elaine Ramstad, an amateur aurora chaser who was helping out on a family farm in northern Minnesota during May's geomagnetic storm, told Spaceweather.com. "All my cousins called me during the storm to tell me that 'my auroras' were driving them crazy while they were planting."

Most large, modern tractors use GPS to help their drivers plant and harvest crops in perfectly straight lines, maximizing farmers' potential output. But to do this, the tractors' computers need to be in clear and constant contact with GPS satellites, located in low Earth orbit (LEO). During geomagnetic storms, our planet's upper atmosphere can expand, get pulled out of shape and become more dense as it soaks up solar radiation, which can interfere with GPS signals being sent to and from LEO.

"If it just happens at the wrong time, in the wrong season, if it holds everything up by three or four days. It can have a significant impact on agriculture," Scott McIntosh, a solar physicist and vice president of the space weather prediction and mitigation company Lynker Space, told Live Science's sister site Space.com.

Tractors built by John Deere and using their GPS navigation system, commonly referred to as "Autosteer," seemed to have been particularly affected by the geomagnetic disturbances, with several farmers reporting issues with the vehicles during May's superstorm, Business Insider reported at the time. But other vehicles were also impacted.

"At least 50% of all farmers are very reliant on GPS and use it on every machine all year long," Ethan Smidt, a service manager for John Deere, told Spacewetaher.com.

But these issues have not just been confined to May's freak event. Many farmers in the U.S. also experienced the same issues during a "severe" G4 storm in early October.

"My GPS was off by close to a foot [in October]. Twice while on Autosteer, the tractor danced a row to the left, to the right… so I had to loop around and start over," Ramstad said. "By nightfall, there was no controlling the Autosteer."

This issue also impacted other farmers across many other northern states, such as Indiana. An unnamed farmer from Iowa also shared striking photos of wonky rows of crops planted during October's storm, showing how the tractor had continually danced back and forth along the lines.

Many other GPS-reliant technologies were also likely impacted by the recent geomagnetic storms, and some satellites have even been knocked out of LEO by the increased drag from our temporarily expanding atmosphere. However, it will take time to properly assess the impacts of these storms and solar maximum in general.

The sun's explosive peak could persist for up to a year, and some scientists are warning that solar activity will remain high, or potentially even increase, during a newly described phase of the sun's cycle, known as the "battle zone" — a period after solar maximum during which large magnetic bands on the sun fight one another. As a result, we will likely see many more GPS-related space weather effects in the near future.

Solar maximum has only just officially begun. But now, some scientists are warning that the sun's activity won't actually peak until after this explosive phase is over and we enter the solar "battle zone."

This relatively understudied phase of the solar cycle, where giant coronal holes emerge on the sun, could end up being disastrous for Earth-orbiting satellites, which have exponentially multiplied since the last solar cycle, experts warn.

Solar maximum is the period of the sun's roughly 11-year solar cycle, or sunspot cycle, when the number of visible dark patches on the sun peaks. During this time, powerful solar flares explode from the solar surface and hurl clouds of charged particles at Earth, triggering intense geomagnetic storms that paint vibrant auroras across the night sky. Halfway through this period, the sun's magnetic field completely flips, leading to an eventual reduction in sunspots and solar activity until we reach "solar minimum" and the next solar cycle begins.

Solar activity has been ramping up over the last few years, hinting that solar maximum could arrive sooner and be more active than scientists initially expected. Last month, space weather experts confirmed this was the case when they announced that solar maximum is already well underway, and could last for around a year or more.

Related: 32 stunning photos of auroras seen from space

But on Nov. 15, Lynker Space, a new space weather prediction and solution company that formed earlier this year, released a blog post explaining that a newly realized phase of the solar cycle, known as the battle zone, will likely begin in the next year or two, as solar maximum ends.

Scott McIntosh, a solar physicist and Vice President of Lynker Space, told Live Science that geomagnetic activity in the upper atmosphere could increase by up to 50% during the battle zone, which could last well into 2028. "The potential for large, dangerous geomagnetic storms in the next few years is very real," he said.

What is the 'battle zone'?

In addition to the 11-year sunspot cycle that most people are familiar with, the sun also has a longer 22-year "Hale cycle," which is the time it takes for our home star's magnetic field to flip and then flip back again.

During this longer cycle, large bands of magnetism, known as Hale cycle bands, emerge at the sun's poles and slowly migrate toward the sun's equator, independent from the sun's wider magnetic field. A new band emerges in both of the sun's hemispheres during each solar maximum and lasts until the end of the next sunspot cycle, when the bands reach the sun's equator and disappear in what researchers call a "solar terminator" event. This means that during the first half of a sunspot cycle (from solar minimum to solar maximum) there is only one Hale cycle band in each of the sun's hemispheres. But during the second half of a cycle (after solar maximum), there are two bands in each hemisphere.

The overlap of these giant bands is what governs the sunspot cycle, McIntosh explained. When there is only one band in each hemisphere, there is a magnetic imbalance across the sun with weaker magnetic fields near the equator, allowing the number of black spots to increase around our home star's waist, he said.

But when a second band is established, it "reduces the imbalance" and makes it harder for sunspots to form, McIntosh added. "Eventually, over a few years, as the bands march towards the equator the imbalance progressively decreases until the sun can't make any sunspots."

Hale cycle bands have historically been overlooked by most space weather forecasters who rely more on sunspot numbers to predict solar activity. However, some scientists are starting to realize that the magnetic bands are more important than we thought. For example, studying the solar terminator event that preceded the current solar cycle allowed McIntosh and others to correctly predict the arrival of solar maximum when other experts did not.

The battle zone is a new term introduced by Lynker Space to describe the period when two Hale cycle bands are "vying for dominance" in each of the sun's hemispheres, McIntosh said.

"We are using this term to describe the fact that geomagnetic activity is enhanced after sunspot maximum," he added.

'Significantly enhanced' activity

The reason that the battle zone is potentially more dangerous than solar maximum is twofold: First, the number of solar flares erupting from the sun remains high for several years after solar maximum, meaning Earth gets hit by just as many solar storms as we are getting now; second, the magnetic tug-of-war between the Hale cycle bands triggers the formation of coronal holes — giant dark patches created by the sun's magnetic field that poke through the sun's corona, or outer atmosphere.

Coronal holes are dangerous because they can create short and extreme gusts of solar wind — the constant stream of charged particles expelled by the sun. For example, in December 2023, a coronal hole wider than 60 Earths bombarded us with solar wind; and in 2022, a coronal hole created a "gap" in the solar wind, so large that it briefly "blew up" Mars' atmosphere.

All the extra solar particles expelled by coronal holes get soaked up by Earth's upper atmosphere during the battle zone, on top of the particles from the frequently occurring solar storms, which "means that the buffeting of the magnetosphere is enhanced," McIntosh said.

For most people on Earth, the battle zone poses very little threat. It could even be good news for aurora hunters because the chances of seeing the dancing light shows are even higher during this period.

However, this spell could be very difficult for satellite operators because all of this extra geomagnetic activity can cause the upper atmosphere to swell up. When this happens, orbiting spacecraft can experience additional drag, causing them to fall back to Earth — this has already happened during the current solar maximum. With new satellites launching in record numbers thanks to projects like SpaceX's Starlink constellation, the odds of solar weather triggering disastrous satellite malfunctions grow ever higher.

"We have never had so many objects in low-Earth orbit [around 10,000]," McIntosh said. "We will be seeing in real time what the impact of the battle zone is on the businesses fighting to survive and succeed in that environment."

Get ready to look up on Thanksgiving night. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), millions of people in the U.S. and Canada may have a chance to see the Northern Lights on Thursday (Nov. 28) and Friday (Nov. 29) as a solar storm hurtles toward Earth.

According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, a huge concentration of solar particles called a coronal mass ejection (CME) launched from an active sunspot on Monday (Nov. 25) and has a good chance of striking Earth on Thursday or Friday, triggering a minor to moderate geomagnetic storm.

If the CME strikes our planet's magnetic field as NOAA predicts, charged particles will skitter toward the planet's magnetic poles, energizing atmospheric molecules along the way and forcing them to emit energy in the form of colorful light — also known as an aurora. According to NOAA, the aurora may be visible in every state all along the U.S.-Canada border, from Maine to Washington, and possibly even further south. The agency shared this map of predicted aurora visibility along with a geomagnetic storm alert.

Geomagnetic storms are disturbances in Earth's magnetic field, or magnetosphere, triggered by powerful infusions of solar energy. Besides causing auroras to appear at much lower latitudes than usual, these storms can also result in power grid disturbances, GPS issues, satellite malfunctions and high-frequency radio blackouts. Fortunately, NOAA predicts the incoming storm will be of G1 or G2 strength — the lowest levels on the five-tier scale used to measure geomagnetic storm intensity. No preparation or precautions are necessary.

Related: Aurora activity is just getting started. Here's why the best northern lights are yet to come.

There's also a chance that the CME will miss Earth entirely, NOAA noted, resulting in no geomagnetic storm or auroras this week. Researchers won't know for sure until the CME comes much closer to Earth on Thursday.

In general, the best way to see the Northern Lights is to get as far from artificial light pollution as possible, and simply look up. Auroras are visible to the naked eye, but may look even more crisp and colorful through a smartphone camera. No telescope or binoculars are necessary to enjoy the Northern Lights — however, Black Friday may be the best day of the year to snag a great deal on skywatching equipment if you have any interest in viewing planets, comets, galaxies or the full moon up-close.

Auroras, CMEs and general solar weather occur more often during the peak of the sun's 11-year activity cycle, known as solar maximum. NASA and NOAA jointly announced the beginning of the current cycle's solar maximum on Oct. 15, noting that solar activity is likely to remain high for at least a year. That means many more chances to spot the aurora through 2025, even if the Thanksgiving lights are a no-show.

In early November, three tiny Australian satellites from Curtin University's Binar Space Program burned up in Earth's atmosphere. That was always going to happen. In fact, Binar means "fireball" in the Noongar language of the First Nations people of Perth.

When a satellite is in low Earth orbit (2,000km or less), it experiences orbital decay as it drags closer and closer to the surface, eventually burning up.

But these cube satellites (CubeSats), known as Binar-2, 3 and 4, entered the atmosphere much sooner than originally planned. They only lasted for two months — a third of what was expected. This significantly reduced valuable time for science and testing new systems.

The reason for their untimely demise? Our Sun has kicked into high gear, and the Binar satellites are far from the only casualty. Recent high solar activity has been causing an unexpected headache for satellite operators in the last few years, and it's only increasing.

Why is the Sun so active?

Solar activity includes phenomena such as sunspots, solar flares and solar wind — the stream of charged particles that flows toward Earth.

This activity is a product of the Sun's ever-changing magnetic field, and approximately every 11 years, it completely flips. At the midpoint of this cycle, solar activity is at its highest.

While this cycle is known, specific solar activity is challenging to predict — the dynamics are complex and solar forecasting is in its infancy.

In the last few months, indicators of solar activity were more than one and a half times higher than predictions for this point in the current cycle, labelled solar cycle 25.

Related: Scientists finally confirm that solar maximum is well underway — and the worst could still be to come

The impact of space weather

Space weather refers to the environmental effects that originate from outside our atmosphere (mostly the Sun). It affects us on Earth in a variety of noticeable and unnoticeable ways.

The most obvious is the presence of auroras. In the past few months, auroras have been visible far more intensely and closer to the equator than in the last two decades. This is a direct result of the increased solar activity.

Space weather, and solar activity in particular, also creates additional challenges for satellites and satellite operators.

Higher solar activity means more solar flares and stronger solar wind — resulting in a higher flux of charged particles that can damage or disrupt electrical components on satellites.

It also means an increase in ionising radiation, resulting in a higher dose for astronauts and pilots, and potential disruptions to long-distance radio communications.

But for satellites in low Earth orbit, the most consistent effect of solar activity is that the extra energy gets absorbed into the outer atmosphere, causing it to balloon outward.

As a result, all satellites less than 1,000km from Earth experience a significant increase in atmospheric drag. This is a force that disrupts their orbit and causes them to fall towards the planet's surface.

Notable satellites in this region include the International Space Station and the Starlink constellation. These satellites have thrusters to counteract this effect, but these corrections can be expensive.

Low Earth orbit also contains many university satellites, such as the Binar CubeSats. Cube satellites are rarely equipped with tools that can adjust their altitude, so they're entirely at the mercy of space weather.

What happened to Binar?

The Binar Space Program is a satellite research program operating out of Curtin University. It aims to advance our understanding of the Solar System and lower the barrier for operating in space.

The program began operations with its first satellite, Binar-1, in September 2021. This was less than a year into solar cycle 25 when solar activity was relatively low.

In these conditions, the ten-centimetre cube satellite started at an altitude of 420km and survived a full 364 days in orbit.

The program's follow-up mission — Binar-2, 3, and 4 — were three equally sized CubeSats. However, they were expected to last approximately six months owing to the extra surface area from new deployable solar arrays and a forecast increase in solar activity.

Instead, they only made it to two months before burning up. While cube satellite missions are relatively cheap, the premature ending of a mission will always be costly. This is even more true for commercial satellites, highlighting the need for more accurate space weather forecasting.

The good news is the Sun will calm down again. Despite the current unexpectedly high solar activity, it will likely slow down by 2026, and is expected to return to a solar minimum in 2030.

While this was not an explicit goal of the mission, the Binar Space Program has now poignantly demonstrated the dramatic effects of solar activity on space operations.

While the untimely loss of Binar-2, 3 and 4 was unfortunate, work has already begun on future missions. They are expected to launch into far more forgiving space weather.

This edited article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

There's no doubt we've been treated to some remarkable aurora shows this year (the May superstorms and the recent strong activity in October spring to mind) but what if I told you this was only the beginning of some incredible northern lights activity?

In October 2024, scientists announced that the sun has reached solar maximum, a period of heightened solar activity and sunspot frequency that occurs during the sun's approximately 11-year solar cycle. During the solar maximum period, the sun emits more energized particles as it erupts with coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and solar flares, which can trigger geomagnetic storms and intensify aurora displays. Now that solar maximum is underway, it's understandable that many declare THIS is the year for the northern lights. However, scientists believe the best aurora activity in this solar cycle is still to come.

Space.com spoke to solar physicist and northern lights expert Pål Brekke and solar and astrophysical researcher Scott McIntosh to learn more about when you can expect the highest auroral activity this solar cycle and how to make the very most of your aurora-hunting efforts. Spoiler alert: you may have more time than expected to plan your next trip to see the northern lights.

It's good news for aurora chasers as peak auroral activity occurs a few years after solar maximum, according to Brekke. This means the best time to see the northern lights and the southern lights will be during the 2026-2027 aurora season.

But why?

The northern lights (aurora borealis) and the southern lights (aurora australis) are created when energized particles from the sun hit Earth's atmosphere and are funneled toward the poles by our planet's magnetic field. As the particles are redirected toward the poles, they interact with our atmosphere, by depositing energy, causing the atmosphere to fluoresce, or emit visible light. We have come to recognize this fluorescence as the northern and southern lights.

"As mentioned, the aurora activity varies with the solar cycle. However, the peak in the aurora activity (if you plot the Ap or Kp-index) comes a few years after solar maximum. Thus, we should have several years still with very high aurora activity." Brekke explains.

For anyone familiar with aurora forecasting apps and software, the Kp-index is something you've likely come across.

"It is the global geomagnetic activity index based on 3-hour measurements from ground-based magnetometers around the world," Brekke explains. Likewise, the Ap-index is a similar geomagnetic index driven by the sun's magnetism and solar wind. Together, Kp and Ap are good proxies for aurora activity.

If you plot solar activity, indicated by the number of sunspots on the surface, and the Kp-index, there is a clear variation of aurora activity with the approximately 11-year solar cycle. But note that the peak in aurora activity actually occurs a few years after solar maximum. You can view an interactive graph of this activity here courtesy of GRZ German Research Centre for Geosciences.

"This means that 2026-2027 should be great for hunting the northern and southern lights" Brekke told Space.com.

But why this so-called "aurora lag"? Brekke explains one reason is that Earth-directed coronal holes are more frequent in the decaying phase and the solar minimum period.

Coronal holes are dark regions in the sun's corona when viewed in extreme ultraviolet and soft X-ray solar images. Like sunspots, they appear darker because they are cooler than the surrounding plasma. Coronal holes are areas of open, unipolar magnetic fields (where the magnetic field predominantly has one polarity, either north or south) that allow solar wind to escape more easily into space, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Space Weather Prediction Center (NOAA SWPC).

When directed at Earth, the stream of solar wind flowing from a coronal hole can impact Earth's magnetosphere, triggering geomagnetic storm conditions and resulting in impressive aurora displays. Larger and more persistent coronal holes can sometimes remain for several solar rotations — 27-day periods, according to NOAA SWPC.

Coronal holes are the main driver of aurora activity during periods of low solar activity. Even at solar minimum, there is a lot of aurora activity. "It never drops close to zero as the sunspot activity almost does. So even during solar minimum, you can experience great auroras at high latitudes," Brekke continues.

Another factor affecting the apparent peak in auroral activity after solar maximum is that the space weather environment after the solar maximum period and before solar minimum gets a little bit "complicated".

To understand why we need to first break up the solar cycle into two parts, McIntosh describes them as the "light side," activity driven by active regions such as solar flares and CMEs; and the "dark side," activity driven by coronal holes.

Both of these phases contribute to geomagnetic activity. During solar maximum, we see an increase in the "light side" of activity, through increased frequency and strength of solar flares and accompanying CMEs.

After solar maximum, during the declining phase of the solar cycle, the "light side" and "dark side" of solar activity overlap in time. This makes the space weather environment rather messy.

McIntosh's research has discovered that the sun's 22-year magnetic cycle known as the Hale Cycle is crucial to understanding why we have this overlap between the "light" and "dark" solar activity.

"This is the battle between the present Hale Cycle and the next one — the one that will produce sunspot cycle 26 in 8 years," McIntosh told Space.com.

"The next magnetic Hale Cycle is a source of coronal holes as are the decay of solar active regions on the present one — so in short the number of coronal holes increases for a few years post maximum and this makes for a very complex space environment." McIntosh continued.

This complexity drives Earth's magnetosphere wild, resulting in increased geomagnetic activity, according to McIntosh.

"In my view, it is the overlapping of the Sun's magnetic hale cycles that is the primary cause of the increase in Kp post maximum," McIntosh told Space.com

"With this solar cycle I guess we will be working to establish that as fact and not just a hypothesis," McIntosh continued.

The turbulent space weather environment during the post-solar maximum period will be a headache for space weather forecasters and technology in low earth orbit. But it's good news for aurora chasers and those wanting to catch a glimpse of the northern lights during this solar cycle.

Top tips for seeing the northern lights

We have had some incredible aurora displays deep into mid-latitudes during this solar cycle but to give yourself the very best chance of seeing stunning northern lights, you'll need to travel to high latitudes.

"The northern lights can be observed most frequently within a region around the Earth's magnetic pole, called the auroral zone. This is a band where you have the biggest chance of seeing the northern lights each clear night," Brekke told Space.com.

The auroral zone, or auroral oval, spans northern Finland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland and southern Greenland as well as Northern Canada, Alaska and northern Russia.

Brekke recommends avoiding city lights as best you can and finding a dark place away from the city on a summit or open country with a clear view of the northern horizon.

Also, it's worth noting that amazing aurora displays are not just reserved for those of us watching from the ground. Lucky passengers on intercontinental flights also have a great opportunity to see the northern lights.

"Normally all long westbound flights are flying at night time and they are often flying far north along the great circle. A flight from the USA to Europe or China will bring you up close to the Arctic and you will most often see a great view of the northern lights." Brekke told Space.com.

Next time you book an intercontinental flight with a route along the great circle Brekke recommends booking a window seat on the side of the plane with a view of northern skies.

Originally posted on Space.com.

The explosive peak in the sun's roughly 11-year cycle of activity — known as the solar maximum — is already well underway, scientists have announced. While many experts suspected that this was the case, the official confirmation comes as a big surprise given that researchers normally hold off on making such announcements until after this active phase starts winding down.

Representatives from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the international Solar Cycle Prediction Panel (SCPP) made the announcement on Tuesday (Oct. 15). The groups confirmed that the solar maximum has already begun and suggested that it may have started as early as two years ago, long before initial solar cycle forecasts had predicted. The scientists also noted that solar activity will likely remain high for around another year.

"This announcement doesn't mean that this is the peak of solar activity we'll see this solar cycle," Elsayed Talaat, director of space weather operations at NOAA, said during the announcement. Solar activity could still increase in the coming months, bringing more vibrant aurora displays and potentially damaging solar storms to Earth, he added.

Many scientists not involved with the SCPP already speculated that solar maximum had begun earlier this year. However, SCPP researchers normally wait until months after solar activity starts to ramp down to announce exactly when a solar maximum began. The unusually early announcement may have been prompted by a series of extreme space weather events over the last few weeks and months.

Related: 15 signs the sun is gearing up for its explosive peak — the solar maximum

In December 2019, when the current solar cycle (Solar Cycle 25) began, the SCPP predicted that solar maximum would likely start around 2025 and be relatively weak compared with past cycles, much like the previous maximum during Solar Cycle 24, which peaked between 2011 and 2014.

However, it soon became apparent that these initial predictions were inaccurate when signs of solar activity, such as sunspot numbers and the frequency of solar flares, began to sharply climb in late 2022 and early 2023.

In June 2023, Live Science was one of the first major media outlets to predict that the solar maximum would arrive earlier and be more active than initially expected. And in October last year, SCPP scientists released an unprecedented updated forecast predicting that the solar maximum could begin in early 2024.

Solar activity "has slightly exceeded expectations," Lisa Upton, co-chair of the SCPP, said during the most recent announcement. But the solar activity is not out of character for a typical solar maximum, she said.

However, 2024 has already demonstrated some potentially record-breaking levels of solar activity. For example, in August, the number of visible sunspots on the solar surface reached a 23-year high, including the highest daily count since 2001.

The number of X-class solar flares — the most powerful explosions the sun can produce — has also exceeded any other year on modern record (since 1996), according to SpaceWeatherLive.com. The most powerful of these solar outbursts was an X9 magnitude blast on Oct. 3, which was the most explosive flare since 2017.

Solar flares can launch clouds of plasma and radiation, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), at Earth. These can trigger geomagnetic storms, or disturbances in our planet's magnetic field, which can paint the skies with auroras.

In May, a barrage of CMEs triggered the most intense geomagnetic storm for 21 years, leading to one of the most widespread aurora displays in the last 500 years. Several other "severe" geomagnetic storms have also hit our planet this year, most recently between Oct. 10 and Oct. 11.

Time will tell if solar activity will reach even greater levels in the coming year. But there is a chance that even more powerful solar storms, on par with the 1859 Carrington Event, could strike our planet, potentially impacting ground-based infrastructure, triggering widespread radio blackouts and causing satellites to tumble back to Earth.

An enormous mass of charged particles that erupted from the sun on Tuesday (Oct. 8) has slammed into Earth, triggering a "severe" G4-class geomagnetic storm.

The storm is expected to crackle through our planet's atmosphere from Thursday into Friday (Oct. 10 to 11), causing possible power grid disruptions and generating bright auroras at much lower latitudes than usual, according to an alert from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC).

According to SWPC, the northern lights "may become visible over much of the northern half of the country, and maybe as far south as Alabama to northern California" on Thursday night.

The storm may also "impact ongoing recovery efforts for Hurricanes Helene and Milton" by putting extra stress on power grids weakened by the hurricanes and interfering with communications systems that depend on low-Earth orbit satellites, SWPC warned. Agency representatives have already contacted federal and state officials involved in the hurricane recovery about these possibilites.

As the geomagnetic storm develops, there is a chance it could escalate into "extreme" G5-class conditions, SWPC added, putting the storm on par with the exceptional solar outburst that hit Earth in May, which resulted in visible auroras as far south as Florida. SWPC will continue to update the public via their website as the storm progresses.

"Will this be a global phenomenon or seen across the United States, such as the May storm?" Shawn Dahl, service coordinator for the SWPC, said at a press conference on Wednesday (Oct. 9). "It's tough to say until we get a good read on it. We would really need to reach those G5 levels for that to happen again, and we do have a chance for that."

The solar outburst, known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), is the result of a powerful solar flare that erupted from our star on the evening of Oct. 8, according to NOAA. The flare has been categorized as an X 1.8-class solar flare, which is the strongest type of flare the sun can emit.

Solar flares occur when tangled magnetic-field lines on the sun violently snap back into place. Some flares may be accompanied by CMEs — fast-moving blobs of plasma that can take several days to reach Earth, if our planet happens to be within the firing line. Upon hitting our planet, CMEs can cause major disturbances in Earth's magnetic field known as geomagnetic storms, resulting in technological malfunctions and widespread auroras. NOAA measures geomagnetic storms on a scale of 1 to 5, with G1 storms considered "mild" and G5 storms dubbed "extreme."

Related: 32 stunning photos of auroras seen from space

There is little that individuals can do to mitigate the effects of the geomagnetic storm. But aurora chasers are advised to get as far away from city lights as possible for the best chance at seeing the northern lights. You don't need any special gear to see auroras, but viewing them through a phone camera can allow the colors to pop even more than they appear to the naked eye.

Solar flares, CMEs and auroras become more common during solar maximum, the peak of the sun's roughly 11-year activity cycle. The current cycle's solar maximum was initially predicted to begin in 2025, but some scientists suggest it may be happening right now. Researchers won't know for sure until the maximum has ended and solar activity begins to decline again.

Besides Earth, another object was also in the firing line of the incoming CME: the bright comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS), which is currently making its closest approach to the sun in 80,000 years. There's a chance the comet's tail was blown off or bent by the solar eruption, according to spaceweather.com, as was the case when a CME hit the horned "devil comet" 12P/Pons-Brooks earlier this year. Skywatchers won't know if comet C/2023's tail survived until it emerges from the sun's glare later this weekend.

Editor's note: This article was updated on Oct. 10 with new information from NOAA

The sun has unleashed its most powerful solar flare in 7 years, following another supercharged explosion earlier in the week. Both outbursts have launched coronal mass ejections (CMEs) at Earth, which could trigger vibrant aurora displays across large parts of our planet this weekend.

The latest X-class solar flare — the most powerful type the sun can produce — exploded from sunspot AR3842 at around 8 a.m. EDT on Thursday (Oct. 3). The flare had a magnitude of at least X9, making it the most powerful solar eruption of the current solar cycle — surpassing a monster X8.7 magnitude blast in May.

It is the most powerful solar flare since September 2017, when the sun emitted an X11.8 and X13.3 flare within a few days of each other.

The latest flare launched a wave of radiation at Earth, bypassing Earth's magnetic shield, or magnetosphere, and ionized the upper parts of the upper atmosphere, creating a temporary radio blackout above parts of Africa and the South Atlantic Ocean. It also hurled a CME — a cloud of fast-moving plasma and solar particles — into space, which will likely collide with Earth on Sunday (Oct. 6), according to Spaceweather.com.

On Monday (Oct. 1), the same sunspot unleashed a massive X7.1 flare, which is now the third most powerful of the current cycle. This caused a similar radio blackout above the Pacific Ocean and launched another CME at Earth. The plasma cloud was predicted to hit Earth on Saturday (Oct.5) but could now strike our planet tonight (Oct. 4).

Related: Could a powerful solar storm wipe out the internet?

When the CMEs hit our planet over the weekend, they will likely trigger a disturbance in the magnetosphere, known as a geomagnetic storm, which enables solar particles to penetrate deep into the atmosphere and trigger vibrant aurora displays at unusually low latitudes. The National Space Weather Prediction Center predicts that a geomagnetic storm could persist between Oct. 4 and Oct. 6 and will likely reach a "strong" (G3) power level, making auroras likely.

A similar geomagnetic storm occurred in mid-August after another X-class flare hurled a CME right at us.

The latest solar outbursts are a reminder that we have likely entered the explosive peak of the sun's roughly 11-year solar cycle, known as solar maximum. Scientists had initially predicted that this phase would begin next year and be less active than past solar cycles. However, it quickly became clear that solar maximum would arrive sooner and be more active than expected, forcing researchers to update their forecasts for the first time in their history.

2024 has already been rife with solar activity. In May, our planet experienced its most powerful geomagnetic storm for 21 years after a barrage of X-class CMEs triggered some of the most widespread auroras for 500 years. And in August, the number of visible sunspots hit a 23-year high.

The latest monster flare is the 42nd X-class flare of 2024, according to SpaceWeatherLive.com. For context, there were only 36 X-class flares over the previous nine years.

Over the next few months, the number of geomagnetic storms and auroras could spike further as Earth's magnetic field becomes more closely aligned with the solar wind around the fall equinox. This means any solar storms spat out by the sun have a higher chance of slamming into the magnetosphere.

Sunspot AR3842 could also emit more powerful solar flares in the coming days, researchers warn.

In May, the most powerful geomagnetic storm in more than two decades slammed Earth, leading to intense northern lights displays as far south as Florida and Mexico. With solar activity continuing to escalate at record pace, could a similar display be due in September?

There's no guarantee, but there are reasons to believe that the few weeks on either side of this month's fall equinox (Sept. 22) could see geomagnetic storms more intense than usual. It could mean a brief aurora season.

That's because of something called the Russell-McPherron Effect, which explains why the periods around Earth's two equinoxes, in March and September, often tend to have the most colorful auroral displays. A paper published in 1973 argued that auroras consistently appeared more regularly during March and September, thanks to the magnetic fields of Earth and the solar wind being briefly aligned.

The solar wind is a stream of charged particles from the sun, which suddenly intensifies in the wake of solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) — powerful outbursts of radiation and solar material. Magnetic activity on the sun has a cycle that lasts 11 years. It's due to peak right about now. However, that's not why an aurora season could be imminent.

Related: Sunspots surge to 23-year high as solar maximum continues to intensify far beyond initial expectations

Auroras occur when charged particles in the solar wind enter Earth's magnetic field and strike oxygen and nitrogen molecules in the atmosphere; this excites the molecules, causing them to emit light in vivid colors.

While Earth's magnetic field and that of the solar wind are usually misaligned, thanks to the Russell-McPherron effect, Earth's magnetic poles are tilted during the equinoxes to receive the charged particles more easily. As south-pointing magnetic fields inside the solar wind cancel out Earth's north-pointing magnetic field, cracks open in Earth's magnetosphere, causing the solar wind to stream along magnetic field lines more easily.

That geometry is well timed for the Northern Hemisphere, for during September's equinox, 12 hours of darkness follow 12 hours of daylight. So, in addition to the greater chance of intense aurora displays, there's also a greater chance of seeing them in a dark sky than we've had all summer.

The number of black spots peppering the sun's surface in August was the highest for almost 23 years, new data shows. The latest sunspot count was more than twice as high as initial forecasts predicted and is another clear sign that the sun's explosive peak, or solar maximum, is likely well underway — and will be far more active than scientists initially thought.

Sunspots are regions of the sun's surface where surges of electromagnetic radiation break through the star's magnetic field, creating relatively cool patches that appear black to us thanks to an optical illusion. Along with the size and frequency of solar flares and coronal mass ejections, sunspot numbers indicate the progress of the sun's roughly 11-year solar cycle.

During the sun's least active phase, or solar minimum, there are very few or occasionally no sunspots. For example, in late 2019, shortly before the start of the current solar cycle (Solar Cycle 25), there were 40 consecutive days with no visible sunspots. But as the sun's magnetic field gets entangled with itself and weakens, sunspot numbers quickly climb before peaking during solar maximum. During this active phase, the sun's magnetic field eventually snaps and completely flips, which triggers a falling-off period of solar activity and a decrease in sunspots until the whole cycle restarts.

In August, there was an average of 215.5 daily sunspots on our home star's surface, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), which is jointly run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service. The last time the monthly sunspot number was this high was September 2001, during the solar maximum of Solar Cycle 23, when the average was 238.2.

The number of sunspots peaked on Aug. 8, when up to 337 sunspots were observed on the sun, which is the highest total in a 24-hour period since March 2001.

These numbers indicate what some scientists have already suspected — that we have entered solar maximum. However, we can't be certain of this until long after sunspot numbers begin to drop again.

Related: 15 signs the sun is gearing up for its explosive peak — the solar maximum

When the current solar cycle began in 2020, a panel of SWPC scientists predicted that Solar Cycle 25 would be relatively weak compared with historic cycles, much like Solar Cycle 24, which peaked around 2014 and was the weakest maximum for around 90 years. For example, the average sunspot number predicted for August 2024 was 107.8, which is less than half the actual number that has just been released.

The SWPC forecast also suggested that the solar maximum would probably not arrive until 2025.

However, from early on in the current cycle, the sunspot numbers have not matched the initial forecasts. The numbers began to climb in early 2022, reaching an eight-year high by the end of the year. By June 2023, the average number surpassed any of the months from Solar Cycle 24 and has increased ever since.

As a result, SWPC released a "revised prediction" for Solar Cycle 25 in October last year, which forecast that solar maximum would likely arrive by mid-2024 and be more active than expected.

Rising sunspot numbers are not the only indication that we are now living through solar maximum. In early May, Earth was hit with the most powerful geomagnetic storm for more than 21 years, which painted an abnormally large portion of the planet's skies with auroras. And just a few days later, our home star spat out an X8.7 magnitude solar flare — the most powerful solar explosion since 2017.

Solar maximums can last for one to two years or more, meaning there is still a decent chance that activity will continue to ramp up over the next 12 months or so. During Solar Cycle 23, sunspot numbers peaked at a maximum monthly value of 244.3 in July 2000. And in Solar Cycle 22, the monthly record was 284.5 in June 1989.

If solar activity continues to increase and Earth is bombarded with more powerful solar storms, like the 1859 Carrington Event, it could impact ground-based infrastructure, trigger widespread auroras at lower latitudes and cause satellites to tumble back to Earth.

On Aug. 8, scientists may have caught hundreds of individual sunspots on images produced by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

To us, sunspots might seem really tiny — but don't be fooled. They are actually dark areas typically the size of the entire Earth on the sun's surface. Plus, they exhibit strong magnetic fields that can fire off solar flares, which spew pulses of electromagnetic radiation into space. These are the explosions that lead to coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that can create solar storms on Earth.

"The process of the solar cycle, the 11-year (on average) dynamic of the sun that leads from solar minimum to maximum, and back to minimum, leads to localized areas of strong magnetic energy that develop on the sun. This is due to what is called differential rotation, where the solar equator is rotating much faster than the poles. When these areas are strong enough, they can lead to sunspot formation," Shawn Dahl, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) Service Coordinator, told Space.com. "This Solar Cycle 25 is proving to be much more active than originally forecast by the scientist experts who predicted the cycle back in 2019 or so."

Solar Cycle 25, which has already made a name for itself with intense geomagnetic storms that created show-stopping auroras around the world, most notably from atypical vantage points, could now also hold the spot for the biggest daily sunspot number (SSN) in more than 20 years. In a recent release, the SWPC reported that, using measurements from its resources, the value came in at 337, which would mark the first time scientists have seen a daily SSN that numerous since March of 2001.

Related: Powerful solar eruption temporarily rips 'tail' off Earth's magnetosphere

"It is based on a standard calculation that we used based on United States Air Force (USAF) solar observatories that report sunspots to us at SWPC. But our sunspot number is not the official number; that comes later from Belgium and the Solar Influences Data Center (SIDC)," Dahl said. "Meanwhile, we analyze every group of spots visible on the sun and calculate their potential for solar flare and energetic particle events (R- and S-scale events), and we also produce a daily summary of all the active regions each day.

Although the SSN still is in the process of being finalized, which is expected to be released by the end of the month, the World Data Center – Sunspot Index and Long-Term Solar Observations (WDC-SILSO) and the Royal Observatory’s Solar Influences Data Center (SIDC) in Belgium currently approximate the count at 299, which would suggest the largest daily SSN since July 2002.

As you may recall, Aug. 8 was also a very busy day for active sunspot regions. It was just the beginning of a period that lasted through Aug. 10, during which solar flares fired off five CMEs toward Earth that led to the issuance of geomagnetic storm watches for our planet the weekend of Aug. 11 to Aug. 12.

"There was the R3 level flare that had an associated CME later on August 8 (AR 3774) that was associated with yet another CME. There had been a number of them during the week leading up to this one, but this CME appeared to have the higher level of confidence for an Earth-directed component and a G2 Watch was continued into that weekend accordingly," Dahal said. "This was indeed suspected to be the CME that did arrive and eventually led to G1-G3 levels, and even a 3-hour period of G4 being reached."

Originally posted on Space.com.

Aurora chasers may be in for a treat once again this weekend as an enormous blob of charged particles barrels toward our planet in the wake of a colossal X-class solar flare.

The packet of particles, called a coronal mass ejection (CME), looks poised to hit Earth sometime between Saturday night (Aug. 17) and early Sunday morning (Aug. 18), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center.

This collision will trigger a minor to moderate geomagnetic storm — a disturbance in Earth's magnetic field — that could briefly disrupt certain satellite operations, trigger radio blackouts, and push the northern lights to lower latitudes than usual.

NOAA isn't certain when the CME will strike or how strong it will be, but the agency predicts that auroras may become visible in the states along the U.S.-Canada border beginning Saturday night. Auroral activity may increase going into Sunday, depending on the strength of the incoming solar eruption.

The CME currently headed our way launched from the sun on Aug. 14, following the eruption of a gargantuan X-class solar flare — the most powerful class of solar outburst. Flares occur when tangled magnetic-field lines in the sun's atmosphere suddenly snap and reconnect, shooting powerful blasts of electromagnetic radiation into space. Powerful flares may be accompanied by CMEs, which ooze through space more slowly than flares and usually reach Earth several days after the solar outbursts.

Related: 32 stunning photos of auroras seen from space

Earth's magnetic field mostly protects us from the barrage of charged particles that make up CMEs (with some major exceptions, like the infamous Carrington Event of 1859). As those particles skate along our planet's magnetic-field lines, they charge up and excite molecules in the atmosphere, causing them to emit energy as colorful light — better known as auroras.

Solar flares, CMEs and auroras are more common during solar maximum, the peak of the sun's 11-year activity cycle. Scientists initially predicted that the current cycle's peak would begin in 2025, but there are signs that it may already be upon us. Even if this weekend's auroral display eludes you, expect more chances to view the northern lights in the months to come.

To view auroras, head as far from artificial light sources as possible, using a dark-sky map if necessary. Auroras are visible with the naked eye, but a smartphone camera should be able to capture the atmospheric light show with even greater sensitivity. A good astrophotography camera can also work wonders.

The sun is on the verge of a significant event: a magnetic field reversal. 

This phenomenon happens roughly every 11 years and marks an important stage in the solar cycle. The shift in polarity indicates the halfway point of solar maximum, the height of solar activity, and the beginning of the shift toward solar minimum. 

The last time the sun's magnetic field flipped was toward the end of 2013. But what causes this switch in polarity, and is it dangerous? Let's take a deep look at the sun's magnetic field reversal and investigate the effects it could have on Earth.

Related: Scientists discover the possible origin of the sun's magnetic field, and it's not where they thought it was

To understand the magnetic field's reversal, first, it's important to be familiar with the solar cycle. This approximately 11-year cycle of solar activity is driven by the sun's magnetic field and is indicated by the frequency and intensity of sunspots visible on the surface. The height of solar activity during a given solar cycle is known as solar maximum, and current estimates predict it will occur between late 2024 and early 2026.

But there is another very important, albeit lesser-known, cycle that encapsulates two 11-year solar cycles. Known as the Hale cycle, this magnetic cycle lasts approximately 22 years, through which the sun's magnetic field reverses and then reverts to its original state, Ryan French, a solar astrophysicist and Space.com contributing writer, told Space.com. 

During solar minimum, the sun's magnetic field is close to a dipole, with one north pole and one south pole, similar to Earth's magnetic field. But as we shift toward solar maximum, "the sun's magnetic field becomes more complex, without a clear north-south pole separation," French said. By the time solar maximum passes and solar minimum arrives, the sun has returned to a dipole, albeit with a flipped polarity. 

The upcoming switch in polarity will be from the northern to southern magnetic field in the Northern Hemisphere and vice versa in the Southern Hemisphere. "This will bring it to a similar magnetic orientation to Earth, which also has its southern-pointing magnetic field in the Northern Hemisphere," French explained.

What causes the switch in polarity? 

The reversal is driven by sunspots, magnetically complex regions of the sun's surface that can spawn significant solar events, such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) — large blasts of plasma and magnetic field.

As sunspots emerge close to the equator, they will have an orientation matching the old magnetic field, while sunspots forming closer to the poles will have a magnetic field matching the incoming magnetic orientation, French said. This is called Hale's law. 

"The magnetic field from active regions makes its way toward the poles and eventually causes the reversal," solar physicist Todd Hoeksema, director of the Wilcox Solar Observatory at Stanford University, previously told Space.com.

But the exact underlying cause of such a flip in polarity remains mysterious. "That gets into the whole [solar] cycle, and wondering what that is," Stanford University solar physicist Phil Scherrer previously told Space.com. "We still don't have a really self-consistent mathematical description of what's happening. And until you can model it, you don't really understand it — it's hard to really understand it."

It really depends on where the magnetic field comes from. "Are there going to be many sunspots? And are the sunspots going to contribute to the magnetic field of the pole, or are they going to kind of cancel locally?" Hoeksema said. "That question we don't yet know how to answer."

How quickly does the switch occur? 

What we do know is that the solar magnetic field flip is not instantaneous. It's a gradual transition from a dipole to a complex magnetic field, to a reversed dipole over the entire 11-year solar cycle. "In short, there is no specific 'moment' in which the sun's poles flip," French said. "It's not like the Earth, where the flip is measured by the migration of the North/South pole." 

It generally takes a year or two for a complete reversal, but it can vary significantly. For example, the north polar field of Solar Cycle 24, which ended in December 2019, took nearly five years to reverse, according to the National Solar Observatory.

The magnetic field flip is so gradual, you won't even notice when it happens. And no, however dramatic it might sound, it is not the sign of an impending apocalypse. "The world will not end tomorrow," Scherrer previously told Space.com.

However, we will experience some of the polarity flip's side effects. 

How does the sun's magnetic flip affect us?  

There is no doubt that the sun has been incredibly active recently, firing out numerous powerful solar flares and CMEs, triggering strong geomagnetic storms on Earth, which, in turn, have produced some incredible auroral displays of late. 

However, the increased severity of space weather is not the direct cause of the flip in polarity. Rather, these things tend to occur together, Hoeksema told Space.com in 2013.

Space weather is typically the strongest during solar maximum, when the sun's magnetic field is also the most complex, according to French. 

One side effect of the magnetic field shift is slight but primarily beneficial: It can help shield Earth from galactic cosmic rays — high-energy subatomic particles that travel at near light speed and can damage spacecraft and harm orbiting astronauts who are outside Earth's protective atmosphere. 

As the sun's magnetic field shifts, the "current sheet" — a sprawling surface that radiates billions of miles outward from the sun's equator — becomes very wavy, providing a better barrier against cosmic rays.  

Predicting future solar cycle strengths  

Scientists will be keeping a watchful eye on the sun's magnetic field reversal and seeing how long it takes for it to bounce back into a dipole configuration. If that happens within the next couple of years, the next 11-year cycle will be relatively active, but if the buildup is slow, the cycle will be relatively weak, like the previous Solar Cycle 24. 

Originally posted on Space.com.

Scientists have found the possible origins of the sun's magnetic field, and it's not where they thought it was.

The discovery, made using complex computer simulations, suggests that the sun's magnetic field arises from instabilities in the plasma across the outermost layers of the solar surface, rather than from deep within the star as researchers previously thought.

If the findings are right, their discovery could give scientists a better chance of predicting solar flares and storms that can cause power outages, cripple the internet and even send satellites tumbling to Earth. The researchers revealed their findings in a study published May 22 in the journal Nature.

"I think this result may be controversial," co-author Keaton Burns, a research scientist at MIT, said in a statement. "Most of the community has been focused on finding dynamo action deep in the sun. Now we're showing there's a different mechanism that seems to be a better match to observations."

The sun is a gigantic ball of plasma whose charged ions swirl to create powerful magnetic fields. This region of roiling, flowing plasma, known as the "convection zone," comprises the top third of the sun's radius — stretching from the surface to roughly 124,000 miles (200,000 kilometers) beneath its surface. 

Related: Solar maximum may already be upon us, expert warns — but we won't know for sure until the sun's explosive peak is over

Magnetic field lines cannot cross each other, so sometimes these fields knot into kinks before suddenly snapping — which in turn launches bursts of radiation called solar flares or enormous plumes of solar material called coronal mass ejections (CMEs) out into space. Once launched, CMEs travel at millions of miles per hour, sweeping up charged particles from the solar wind to form a giant, combined wavefront that, if pointed toward Earth, can trigger geomagnetic storms over our planet.

But researchers weren't sure exactly where most of the sun's magnetism originates from. Previously, scientists have tried to work it out using 3D computer simulations to map the flow of plasma, but these models tended to be too simple.

"Those simulations require millions of hours on national supercomputing facilities, but what they produce is still nowhere near as turbulent as the actual sun," Burns said. 

For the new study, the researchers instead turned to data taken from a field known as helioseismology, which uses observations of vibrations rippling across the sun's outer surface to infer the structure inside.

The researchers created their model using algorithms of these surface vibrations, and the results suggested that changes in the flow of plasma across the top 5% to 10% of the sun's surface most closely matched the magnetic fields seen from the outside. When they added possible effects produced by the sun's deeper layers to the simulation, the picture became muddier — no longer pairing with the sun's observed magnetic field.

"The features we see when looking at the sun, like the corona that many people saw during the recent solar eclipse, sunspots, and solar flares, are all associated with the sun's magnetic field," Burns said. "We show that isolated perturbations near the sun's surface, far from the deeper layers, can grow over time to potentially produce the magnetic structures we see."

By further developing their model, the researchers hope to better understand and eventually predict solar storms. Solar activity rises and falls in a roughly 11-year cycle, with intense solar flares and CMEs far more likely to occur during the peak period, known as solar maximum Scientists think we may already be entering the solar maximum of the current cycle, and that this period could be more intense than initially predicted 

The increased activity has sent waves of high-energy plasma and X-ray bursts slamming into Earth's magnetic fields, downing Starlink satellites, triggering radio blackouts and causing auroras as far south as Pennsylvania, Iowa and Oregon. 

The unprecedented auroras that recently wowed millions of people across the globe were some of the most intense light shows our planet has seen for half a millennium, NASA has revealed. The dancing lights, which may have reached the equator, were triggered by Earth's most powerful geomagnetic storm in more than two decades.

Between May 10 and May 12, our planet experienced a major geomagnetic disturbance after at least five solar storms slammed into Earth back-to-back, temporarily weakening the magnetosphere. The solar storms, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), were launched by solar flares from the gigantic sunspot AR3664, which was more than 15 times wider than Earth at the time — the biggest dark patch to appear on the sun for a decade. Several of these solar flares reached "X-class" status — the most powerful type of surface explosion the sun can produce.

The resulting geomagnetic storm was mainly ranked as G4, or "severe," which is the second-highest class of geomagnetic storm. But on two occasions, the storm temporarily reached "extreme" G5 conditions, on par with the fallout from the Carrington event of 1859 — the most powerful solar storm in recorded history, which triggered auroras as far south as Cuba and Hawaii. This was the first time Earth experienced G5 conditions since the Great Halloween storms of 2003.

Fortunately, this superpowered storm did not cause any major issues on Earth apart from some temporary satellite and communications disruptions. However, the event did paint large parts of our planet's skies with vibrant, multicolor auroras as the weakened magnetosphere allowed large amounts of solar radiation to bombard the upper atmosphere and excite gas molecules.

These light shows covered vast areas of both of Earth's hemispheres and were "possibly one of the strongest displays of auroras on record in the past 500 years," NASA representatives wrote in a statement. 

"We'll be studying this event for years," Teresa Nieves-Chinchilla, the acting director of NASA's Moon to Mars Space Weather Analysis Office, said in the statement. "It will help us test the limits of our models and understanding of solar storms."

Related: Why are auroras different colors?

Auroras normally only occur in polar regions, where Earth's magnetosphere is weakest. However, during big geomagnetic storms, solar radiation can reach much further afield. 

In the Northern Hemisphere, auroras from the latest storm were spotted as far south as Florida and Mexico, as well as across large parts of Europe. 

In the Southern Hemisphere, meanwhile, auroras were seen as far north as the Galápagos Islands, which partially straddle the equator, aurora photographer Chris Wickland wrote on the social platform X. However, this sighting has not been confirmed by any scientific organizations or news sites.

Auroras were also spotted in the Southern Hemisphere as far north as New Caledonia — an island nation in the Pacific Ocean between Australia and Tonga. Local photographer Frédéric Desmoulins snapped stunning shots of pink lights filling the sky, which are likely the first aurora photos ever captured on the island, Spaceweather.com reported. 

"As far as we know, the last time sky watchers saw auroras in the area was during the Carrington Event of September 1859, when auroras were sighted from a ship in the Coral Sea," Hisashi Hayakawa, a space weather scientist at Nagoya University in Japan, told Spaceweather.com.

The geomagnetic storm was so strong that the magnetic disturbance was also picked up by seafloor observatories off the Atlantic and Pacific coast of Canada at depths of up to 2.7 miles (4.3 kilometers), according to the University of Victoria.

On May 14, the same sunspot unleashed an X8.7 magnitude solar flare — the most powerful surface explosion of the current solar cycle. However, this outburst did not impact Earth.

The unprecedented level of solar activity is a result of the sun entering the most active phase of its roughly 11-year cycle of activity, known as the solar maximum, which has arrived sooner and is currently more active than scientists initially expected.

The sun has just spat out the strongest solar flare of the current solar cycle, which began in 2019, according to a breaking report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center.

The monster flare is a category X8.7, making it considerably stronger than the X2.2 flare that erupted from the sun last week — triggering radio blackouts and widespread auroras on Earth that were visible as far south as Mexico. 

However, the latest flare is unlikely to result in any geomagnetic storms or aurora activity, as the sunspot group responsible for the blast is located at the very edge of the visible side of the sun, according to NOAA. However, high-frequency radio blackouts are still likely on Earth.

If the flare produces any coronal mass ejections (CMEs) — gigantic, high-speed plumes of charged solar particles — they are not likely to impact Earth directly, as was the case during last weekend's vibrant display of auroras. 

That said, the same monster group of sunspots — which is called active sunspot region 3664 and measures more than 15 Earths wide — is responsible for both last week's X2.2 flare and today's X8.7 flare, NOAA reported. The grouping has spat out numerous other X-class flares over the past several days, but it will soon be entirely out of view of our planet.

Related: No, you didn't see a solar flare during the total eclipse — but you may have seen something just as special

Solar flares are powerful bursts of electromagnetic radiation that result from magnetic disturbances on the sun. They occur when magnetic field lines in the sun's atmosphere tangle and snap, releasing large amounts of excess energy, including powerful X-rays and ultraviolet radiation. These twisted lines emerge from sunspots — darker, cooler regions on the sun's surface that form when magnetic fields from deep within our star push up to the surface. 

Solar flares can also launch CMEs outward into space, hitting any planets, satellites or other objects in their path. CMEs that hit Earth trigger geomagnetic storms, which can result in auroras,  as well as negative effects such as power grid failures and satellite malfunctions.

All of these extreme solar phenomena — solar flares, sunspots and CMEs — become more common during the peak of the sun's 11-year activity cycle, known as solar maximum. The current cycle, solar cycle 25, began in 2019, and scientists suspect that the sun may soon enter its solar maximum phase, if it hasn't already. Only after the maximum ends, and solar activity dies down again, will scientists know for sure when it peaked. 

The sun hasn't spat out any flares stronger than X8.7 since September 2017, when it emitted an X11.8 and X13.3 flare within a few days of each other, according to spaceweatherlive.com.

Earth has just experienced its most powerful geomagnetic storm in more than 20 years after a series of solar storms smashed into our planet. The extraordinary event triggered vibrant aurora displays as far south as Florida and caused power grid irregularities as well as temporary satellite issues. 

The prolonged disturbance to Earth's magnetic field, which lasted from Friday (May 10) to the early hours of Monday (May 13), started when at least five solar storms, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), slammed into our planet's protective field one after the other. These CMEs were launched into space last week by solar flares from a single, massive sunspot, named AR3664, which is more than 15 times wider than Earth. A majority of these flares were X-class — the most powerful type of surface explosions the sun is capable of producing. 

The CME bombardment temporarily weakened Earth's protective field, which enabled charged particles from the sun to penetrate deep into the atmosphere and excite molecules of gas. These in turn triggered vibrant, multicolored auroras at latitudes much farther from Earth's polar regions than normal. In the Northern Hemisphere, auroras lit up the skies as far south as Florida, Mexico and Puerto Rico, as well as across parts of Europe, according to Spaceweather.com. Similar light shows were also spotted at equally unusual latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere.

Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) had forecast that the storm would be a "severe" G4 disturbance — the second-highest class of geomagnetic storms. However, the disturbance exceeded initial expectations and briefly reached "extreme" G5 status at least twice over the weekend, firstly on May 10 and again on May 11, according to SWPC statements. This is the same category as the infamous Carrington Event of 1859 and is the first time Earth has experienced G5 conditions since the Great Halloween storms of 2003.

In theory, G5 storms can send satellites tumbling to Earth, damage ground-based infrastructure and knock out power grids. However, in this case, the worst effects seem to have been some minor "power grid irregularities" and temporary disruptions to GPS and other satellite services, according to the SWPC.

Related: Aurora photos: Stunning northern lights glisten after biggest geomagnetic storm in 21 years

G5-class storms are rare but are more likely to occur during solar maximum — the most active phase of the sun's roughly 11-year solar cycle. Scientists can't pinpoint exactly when this period begins in real time, but several experts believe we have already entered solar maximum.

Previously, the solar maximum was forecast to arrive at some point next year and be weak compared with previous solar cycles. However, as the solar cycle progressed it became clear that the maximum would arrive sooner — and be more powerful — than initially expected.

Over the weekend, AR3664, which is around the same size as the Carrington sunspot, spat out another two X-class solar flares, including an X5.89-magnitude blast on May 11 — the second-most powerful blast of the current solar cycle. This brings the sunspot's X-class flare count to seven, making it by far the most active sunspot of the current cycle so far, according to SpaceWeatherLive.com. 

At least one of these additional X-class flares launched a CME, which was initially predicted to hit Earth and possibly extend the weekend's geomagnetic storm deep into Monday (May 13). But further observations showed that this CME is not directed at Earth, Spaceweather.com reported. AR3664 is now turning further away from our planet and is unlikely to bombard us with solar storms again.

However, given the rate at which the current solar cycle is progressing, there is a decent chance that we will experience more G4 or G5 disturbances over the next few years.

Editor's note: This story's headline was updated to indicate the storm was the most powerful in 21 years, after a prior verison said 20 years.

What it is: A fiery landscape on the surface of the sun

Where it is: About 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) from Earth

When it was released: May 2, 2024

Why it's so special: A golden meadow stretches to the horizon, complete with fluffy moss, distant rainfall — and gargantuan plasma explosions towering larger than Earth itself.

It's just another day on the sun.

Captured in September 2023 by the European Space Agency's (ESA) Solar Orbiter, this close-up view of our star shows the chaotic transition zone between the sun's chromosphere and corona, the two outermost layers of the sun's atmosphere. Brighter areas of the image (also available as a short video) represent temperatures of 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit (1 million degrees Celsius), according to ESA, with cooler regions looking comparatively dark as they absorb radiation.

This golden panorama is a miniature gallery of extreme solar phenomena. Fuzzy, lace-like features in the bottom left of the image are "coronal moss" — structures that form at the bases of gigantic plasma loops that ride the sun's magnetic-field lines high into the solar atmosphere. 

Related: Eclipse from space: Paths of 2024 and 2017 eclipses collide over US in new satellite image

Near the horizon, towering structures called spicules dance and wave, reaching thousands of miles above the sun's surface. A dark region hovering over the middle left of the footage shows coronal rain — dense blobs of plasma tumbling back down to the sun after rising high on coronal loops. And at roughly 22 seconds into the video, an enormous eruption of plasma — stretching taller than Earth — rears its fiery head.

Solar features like these result from disturbances in the sun's tangled magnetic-field lines. Magnetic disturbances become more common near the peak of the sun's 11-year activity cycle, called solar maximum — a period that scientists think may be occurring right now. Even back in September, the ramp-up in solar activity was evident.

Solar Orbiter captured this fiery footage from about 27 million miles (43 million km) away from the sun — or about one-third Earth's average distance from our star, according to ESA. Fortuitously, NASA's death-defying Parker Solar Probe swooped within 4.5 million miles (7.2 million km) of the sun the same day, allowing the two spacecraft to monitor these extreme solar features and measure their radiation output at the same time.

Invisible "global auroras" have been covering Mars frequently over the past few months, according to data collected by a NASA spacecraft. The rise in these planet-wide light shows, including an unprecedented "aurora hat trick" in February, is tied to solar maximum, the peak in the sun's roughly 11-year solar cycle.

Mars is no stranger to auroras. The planet is often bombarded with high-energy radiation from the sun, known as solar energetic particles (SEPs), which penetrate the red world's thin atmosphere and excite molecules of hydrogen, causing them to emit light, similar to how auroras work on Earth. However, unlike the southern and northern lights on our planet, Martian auroras — also known as proton auroras — emit ultraviolet light instead of visible light, meaning they cannot be seen with the naked eye.

NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft, which has been orbiting the Red Planet since 2013, detected the first proton auroras on Mars in 2016. Most of the auroras observed by MAVEN have been localized to specific regions, but every once in a while, these invisible light shows cover an entire hemisphere that is facing the sun. When this happens, researchers call it a global aurora.

In recent months, the number of global auroras and other auroral activity have risen significantly, Spaceweather.com reported.

"Mars is experiencing its greatest level of auroral activity in the past 10 years," Nick Schneider, a planetary scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder and lead scientist of MAVEN's Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph instrument group, told Spaceweather.com. "In February alone, there were three episodes of global auroras — an 'aurora hat trick' we've never seen before."

The global aurora events can last several days; the triple February auroras occurred on Feb. 3-4, Feb. 7-10 and Feb. 15-16. Although these light shows could not be seen directly, researchers used MAVEN data to visualize the auroras (see below).

Mars is not the only planet other than Earth to have auroras. Similar light shows have been spotted on Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus, according to Live Science's sister site Space.com. Last year, scientists also spotted aurora-like phenomena on the sun for the first time. 

But very few solar system auroras encompass an entire planet (or star) like the recent Martian auroras. The Red Planet is particularly prone to global auroras because it no longer has a complete magnetic field, which would normally shield the dusty world from solar radiation. As a result, it is much easier for SEPs to flood right across what's left of Mars' atmosphere.

Related: Hundreds of black 'spiders' spotted in mysterious 'Inca City' on Mars in new satellite photos

Experts think the current rise in Martian auroras is the result of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) — clouds of magnetized plasma and radiation that get ejected from the sun by powerful explosions known as solar flares. CMEs contain high levels of SEPs, which can bombard Mars if these solar eruptions are oriented toward the planet. 

The sun is currently spitting out CMEs at its highest rate in more than a decade, suggesting that solar maximum may have begun more than a year earlier than initially predicted.

"Mars is currently getting hit by roughly one to two CMEs every month, bringing a hefty supply of SEPs," Rebecca Jolitz, a member of MAVEN's Solar Energetic Particle instrument team at the University of California, Berkeley, told Spaceweather.com. The solar storms also don't have to hit the planet head-on to trigger auroras, she added. Even a glancing blow can spark global auroras if enough SEPs are dumped into the planet's wispy atmosphere.

The MAVEN team will keep a close eye on Mars over the next few years in hopes of seeing even more global auroras. "Solar Cycle 25 is far from over, and we expect many more CME strikes," Schneider said. "This will give us a chance to study how solar storms affect the atmosphere of Mars."

An exceptionally rare, "quadruple" solar flare just exploded from four different points across the sun's surface at almost the exact same time. The components of this interconnected, explosive tetrad may have also launched a solar storm toward Earth — which could potentially slam into our planet in the coming days.

The four-part eruption began at around 1:00 a.m. EDT on Tuesday (April 23), according to video footage captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. The near-simultaneous outbursts came from three sunspots and a large magnetic filament — a large loop of plasma suspended above the solar surface — located in between those three dark patches, Spaceweather.com reported. The blast sites were each separated by hundreds of thousands of miles, and the area between them covered around a third of the solar surface facing Earth.

The concurrent blasts were part of one single eruption, known as a sympathetic solar flare. This type of solar outburst happens when sunspots or filaments are invisibly linked by massive magnetic field loops that arch above the solar surface. When one detonates, the others quickly follow suit.

In almost all reported cases of such events, sympathetic flares include just two linked flares, which can range in intensity from small outbursts to X-class flares, the most powerful class of solar flares the sun can produce. However, in this case, there were twice as many flares as usual, which makes this a "super-sympathetic" flare, according to Spaceweather.com. 

It is currently unclear what the combined power of the blast was. But given the large area covered by the sunspots, there is a decent chance that "at least some of the debris will be Earth-directed," Spaceweather.com reported. This debris would most likely be a massive cloud of plasma and radiation launched by one of the flares, known as a coronal mass ejection (CME). If confirmed, a CME could smash into our planet in the next few days and trigger vibrant auroras near its magnetic poles.

This is at least the third sympathetic solar flare of 2024 following a pair of explosions in January and an X-class flare duo in March. 

Sympathetic solar flares are more likely to occur during or around solar maximum, the most active phase of the sun's roughly 11-year solar cycle, according to a 2022 study that analyzed nearly 40 years of solar flare data. Some researchers believe this explosive peak may have already begun, around a year earlier than initially forecast. 

In addition to ushering in more frequent and powerful solar storms, the solar maximum also comes with an increase in the number of sunspots littered across the sun. At the start of Tuesday, there were 14 sunspot groups on the sun's near side —  tying the record for the highest sunspot total since the start of the current solar cycle in 2019, EarthSky reported.

During the recent total solar eclipse, you may have glimpsed what looked like explosive solar flares bursting from the sun after its fiery corona briefly came into view. But it turns out this was not the case. 

However, what you or others may have seen was equally impressive and just as beautiful. 

On Monday (April 8), millions of people across North America watched as the moon temporarily blocked out our home star and its shadow raced along the path of totality between Mexico and Canada at more than 1,500 mph (2,400 km/h). The cosmic event, which was also seen from space, was particularly special because of the length of totality — the period when the sun's light was completely obscured — which lasted for up to 4 minutes and 28 seconds.

During totality, some observers saw red dots around the obscured sun. Detailed photos of these dots revealed they were actually plasma, including a particularly large, fiery plume on the sun's southwest limb. As a result, multiple outlets including USA Today and NDTV reported that these fiery structures were produced by solar flares — explosions on the sun's surface that can launch massive clouds of plasma, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), into space. Lots of observers also took to social media to share their photos of these "solar flares." 

But experts weighed in to point out there were no solar flares during the eclipse.

"There are many (incorrectly) reporting that a solar flare was visible during the total solar eclipse," Ryan French, an astrophysicist at the National Solar Observatory in Colorado, wrote on the social platform X. "This is sadly untrue, and the bright feature seen by millions was actually a prominence. These are longer-lived plasma structures, and not explosive like flares."

Related: When is the next total solar eclipse after 2024 in North America?

Solar activity data backs up French's claim. On April 8, there was just one minor C-class solar flare that ended several hours before totality began anywhere in the U.S., and it did not launch a CME, according to SpaceWeatherLive.com. This flare was also not linked to the large prominences seen during the eclipse. 

Unlike solar flares, which eject plasma as they explode from the sun's surface, prominences are plasma structures that remain connected to the solar surface for days or weeks, normally forming a large loop, according to NASA. Prominences can eventually snap and fling plasma into space like a CME, but this didn't happen during the eclipse.

Many people were expecting solar flares during the eclipse because the sun is currently near the peak of its roughly 11-year solar cycle, known as solar maximum. During this period, dark sunspots litter the solar surface and frequently unleash flares and other solar storms as the sun's magnetic field begins to unravel. 

However, in the lead-up to the eclipse, the sun became surprisingly inactive with almost no sunspots, which meant the chances of solar flares occurring were greatly reduced. This solar activity lull is only temporary and is expected to pass by the end of the week, according to EarthSky.com.   

If you missed the eclipse, don't worry, it is still possible to rewatch NASA's live stream of the event.

The sun seems to be taking an unexpected nap right now — just in time for the April 8 total solar eclipse on Monday. 

Until recently, solar activity has been very high, which has raised hopes that we may be able to see solar storms shooting out of our home star during totality — the period when the sun is completely blocked out by the moon. But this now seems unlikely, according to the latest space weather forecasts. 

However, if you can get an unobstructed view of our home star from somewhere along the path of totality, it should still look much more impressive than during most other eclipses, experts say. 

The sun is currently nearing solar maximum, the explosive peak of its roughly 11-year solar cycle when dark sunspots litter the sun's surface and frequently spit out powerful solar storms. Some experts believe that this phase may have already begun, around a year earlier than initially forecast. But we will not know for sure until long after it is over.

Over the last two months, solar activity has been exceptionally high. We have seen gigantic sunspots, frequent X-class solar flares (the most powerful class of solar explosion) and towering plasma plumes. On March 23, Earth also experienced its biggest geomagnetic storm in more than six years after a giant cloud of plasma and radiation, known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), smashed into the planet.

Related: April 8 solar eclipse: What time does totality start in every state?

Right now, however, the sun is surprisingly quiet. There are just a couple of active sunspot regions on the sun's nearside to Earth, which are much smaller than those we have seen in the last few weeks, according to Spaceweather.com. The orientation of these regions' magnetic fields also hints that there is a low chance they will be spitting out solar flares or CMEs between now and the eclipse, according to Earthsky.com. 

But just because solar storms are unlikely doesn't mean the eclipse will be any less spectacular. Due to the sun's currently weakened magnetic field, the corona — the outer part of the sun's atmosphere, which looks like a ghostly halo when viewed during a total eclipse — will still be much more prominent than it is during other periods of the solar cycle.

The radiation streaming from the sun will make the corona look like a "spiky hedgehog" during the eclipse, Scott McIntosh, a solar physicist and deputy director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, told Live Science in an email.  

There will also be lots of other interesting stuff for observers to look out for during the eclipse, including stars, planets and the "devil comet," 12P/Pons-Broos, which will be in close proximity to the sun during the eclipse.

However, if you are planning to take a peep at the sun during totality, make sure to do so safely. Totality is the ONLY time it is safe to look at the sun without eye protection — and you MUST be within the path of totality to do so. At all other times during the partial phases of the eclipse, you must wear a decent pair of eclipse glasses, or use other forms of eye protection, such as a pinhole projector or a good solar telescope.

Satellites have detected a massive solar flare powerful enough to ionize part of Earth's atmosphere.

Scientists spotted the flare erupting from the bottom of the sun on Thursday (March 28), using satellites from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), according to the organization's Space Weather Prediction Center. 

The flare, which peaked at 4:56 p.m. ET, was categorized as an X1.1 flare. X-class flares are the most powerful type of explosion the sun can produce, according to NASA. 

The explosion was so powerful that it ionized the top of Earth's atmosphere, resulting in a "deep shortwave radio blackout over the Pacific Ocean," SpaceWeather.com reported.

The solar outburst was also accompanied by an enormous belch of plasma known as a coronal mass ejection (CME). NOAA scientists were initially concerned that the CME would collide with Earth, potentially resulting in a geomagnetic storm that could impact satellites, radio communications and other infrastructure. However, on Friday (March 29) the agency announced that the outburst would likely miss Earth.

Related: Giant sunspot grew 10 times wider than Earth in just 48 hours, then spat X-class flare right at us

Solar flares are large explosions that occur at the sun's surface when twisted magnetic-field lines suddenly snap, emitting large bursts of electromagnetic radiation, according to Space.com, Live Science's sister site.

This solar event comes on the heels of a "double" X-class flare that occurred Monday (March 25), triggering the most powerful geomagnetic storm on our planet in six years. Not only that, but the unique event was made up of two simultaneous explosions, also known as a sympathetic solar flare. 

The abundance of back-to-back solar events has led scientists to think the sun may have entered its explosive era of peak activity, known as solar maximum — which seems to be starting a year earlier than previous forecasts predicted. However, researchers will have to wait until the sun "calms down" to know for sure.

What we do know is that X-class flares are most common during solar maximum, which is part of the sun's 11-year solar cycle. So far in 2024, seven X-class flares, including the latest one, have burst from the sun, which is already half the number that reached Earth in 2023, Live Science previously reported. 

The sun has just bombarded Earth with the most powerful geomagnetic storm our planet has seen in more than six years. The massive storm occurred after an eruption from an extremely rare "double" X-class flare disturbed Earth's magnetic field, lighting up the skies across the globe with vibrant auroras and other luminous phenomena.

The explosive event is another clear sign that the sun has likely reached the fiery peak of its roughly 11-year cycle of activity, known as solar maximum, meaning Earth could be in the firing line of more of these potentially harmful solar storms in the coming months.

On Saturday (March 23), the sun unleashed a 1.1 magnitude X-class solar flare — the most powerful type of explosion the sun can produce. This blast was unusual because it was made up of two simultaneous explosions, known as a sympathetic solar flare, ejected by a pair of sunspots (AR3614 and AR3615) separated by hundreds of thousands of miles, Spaceweather.com reported. 

The tandem explosion launched a massive cloud of plasma and radiation into space, known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), that barreled into Earth's magnetosphere on Sunday (March 24). The collison sent shockwaves through the planet's invisible protective shield, temporarily weakening it. This allowed solar radiation to penetrate deeper into the atmosphere than normal and triggered auroras in Australia and New Zealand, as well as the aurora-like phenomenon STEVE (a.k.a. strong thermal emission velocity enhancement) in Alaska, according to Spaceweather.com.

Related: 10 solar storms that blew us away in 2023

At its peak, the geomagnetic storm reached severe (G4) status, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center, which is co-run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Weather Service. The last time Earth experienced a geomagnetic disturbance this powerful was September 2017, according to Spaceweather.com. (Geomagnetic storms range from minor (G1) to extreme (G5) intensity.)

The unusual nature of this solar explosion and intensity of the resulting geomagnetic storm are both clear indicators that the sun is nearing solar maximum. 

Some experts believe that the sun may have already entered this explosive phase, around a year earlier than initial forecasts predicted. But scientists won't know exactly when this period started until months after the sun eventually begins to calm down.

X-class flares become much more common during solar maximum. So far, six X-class flares have exploded from the sun in 2024, half as many as many that hit the planet in all of 2023, according to SpaceWeatherLive.com.

The increased frequency of these gargantuan explosions make strong geomagnetic storms more likely. In addition to colorful auroras, these storms can also impact ground-based infrastructure, cause satellites to tumble back to Earth and superheat the upper atmosphere. 

The solar maximum coincides with the upcoming total solar eclipse on April 8, giving millions of skywatchers in North America the rare opportunity to view the sun’s fiery outer atmosphere, or corona, when the moon totally covers the sun’s disk for up to four and a half minutes.  Given the amount of recent activity, the corona will likely be especially beautiful during totality. There is also a decent chance that onlookers may be able to see solar flares or CMEs during the event.

A gigantic, fiery eruption around 40 times wider than Earth recently exploded from the sun's hidden far side. The eruption hurled a massive cloud of plasma into space that later smashed into Mercury, scouring the planet's rocky surface and potentially triggering "X-ray auroras" on the unprotected world.

The eruption was likely triggered by a powerful solar flare, which occurred around 7 p.m. ET on March 9, Spaceweather.com reported. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spotted a large, partially obscured plasma filament exploding outward from behind the sun's northeast limb. Based on the amount of visible plasma, the eruption likely spanned around 310,000 miles (500,000 kilometers) across.

SDO data showed that the explosion, which likely left behind a massive "canyon of fire" on the sun's surface, also released a large coronal mass ejection (CME) — a fast-moving cloud of magnetied plasma and radiation — that collided with Mercury on March 10.

Mercury is often blasted with CMEs due to its proximity to our home star. The small planet has no atmosphere left as a result of this bombardment and is fully exposed to the full force of these solar storms. 

When electrons from CMEs hit Mercury's unprotected surface, they rapidly slow down. This deceleration causes the particles to release energy in the form of X-rays, which scientists can detect from Earth. The result is an aurora-like phenomenon that is visible in X-rays rather than visible light, according to Live Science's sister site Space.com.

Related: 10 solar storms that blew us away in 2023

The gigantic eruption is the latest sign that the explosive peak of the sun's roughly 11-year solar cycle, known as solar maximum, may have already begun — much earlier than originally forecast.

During solar maximum, solar flares and other types of solar storms erupt more frequently and more powerfully as the sun's magnetic field weakens and eventually flips over. Scientists are already seeing signs of this happening.

In the last month, researchers have seen some of the biggest solar storms of the current cycle, including a monster X-class flare — the most powerful for more than six years — and a plume of plasma 15 times taller than Earth, which erupted from the sun's south pole.

One of the biggest concerns during solar maximum is that researchers can't properly monitor the far side of the sun, which can harbor giant sunspots that unleash surprise solar storms, like the one that just hit Mercury. It's possible that these sunspots could swing round to face Earth as the sun rotates, exposing our planet to flares and CMEs. For example, in January 2023, a hidden sunspot spat out an X-class flare without warning that narrowly avoided Earth.

One secret weapon NASA has up its sleeve to prevent being caught out by these unseeable dark patches is the Perseverance rover, which can sometimes spy on the sun's far side from its home on Mars. But this only works when Earth and Mars are located on opposite sides of the sun. 

Although it initially wasn't predicted to occur until next year, the sun may have already entered the most active and dangerous phase of its roughly 11-year solar cycle, known as solar maximum, a leading expert told Live Science. But we won't know for sure until long after the sun starts to calm down again over the next few years.

During solar maximum, the number of dark-colored sunspots peppering the sun's surface increases significantly. As a result, they spit out more frequent and more powerful solar storms, some of which can smash into Earth, causing radio blackouts and stunning auroras. 

This activity spike is caused by the sun's magnetic-field lines gradually becoming more tangled. But at some point during solar maximum, these magnetic-field lines snap, resulting in the total reversal of the star's magnetic poles — where the magnetic south and north poles swap places. After this, the sun begins to calm down and eventually reaches solar minimum, when sunspots and solar storms disappear almost completely before the next cycle begins. 

In 2019, the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), which is run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), released the forecast for the current solar cycle (Solar Cycle 25), which began that year. The forecast, which was made by a panel of scientists from NOAA, NASA and the International Space Environment Services, predicted that the upcoming solar maximum would be comparable in size to the relatively weak maximum of the previous cycle (Solar Cycle 24) and likely wouldn't arrive until 2025. 

However, other scientists soon noticed that the sun's fiery behavior deviated from that forecast. Sunspots cropped up much more frequently than expected and spewed powerful solar storms far more often than predicted. And last June, several researchers told Live Science that solar maximum would likely begin earlier — and be more active — than the initial forecasts suggested, potentially arriving in early 2024.

Related: 15 signs the sun is gearing up for its explosive peak — the solar maximum

One of those researchers was Scott McIntosh, a solar physicist and deputy director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado. As Solar Cycle 25 began in 2019, McIntosh and his team discovered that a previously unknown type of magnetic anomaly, known as solar terminator events, had preceded most past maximums on record. After looking at the most recent solar terminator, McIntosh's team realized that the initial predictions could be wrong and later used this information to plot the alternative solar cycle timeline reported by Live Science. 

These findings were not considered by the Solar Cycle 25 prediction panel. But last October, the SWPC acknowledged that the initial forecasts were off and, for the first time ever, released updated predictions suggesting solar maximum would likely arrive between January and October of this year. 

In the months since the SWPC update, solar activity has been up and down, with a sharp peak in December and an unusual lull in January, which has made it hard to gauge when solar maximum might arrive. However, a recent flurry of activity in February suggests it may have started. 

"I think that we are definitely entering that phase of activity," McIntosh told Live Science in an email. However, the official beginning and end of solar maximum are hard to pinpoint in real time because you can only tell when sunspot numbers peaked after they start to drop again, McIntosh said. 

The SWPC typically announces when solar maximum officially began at least seven months after sunspot numbers start to drop following the maximum, Live Science's sister site Space.com previously reported. As a result, we won't officially know when it started for several years.

But there is another way we can track solar maximum's arrival, McIntosh said: the strength of the sun's magnetic field. 

In the lead-up to solar maximum, the magnetic-field strength at the sun's poles decreases and eventually reaches zero during polar reversal, McIntosh said. We can track this in real time, and over the past few months, the polar magnetic-field strength has been "hovering around zero," he added. 

Related: A once-in-a-lifetime view of the sun's 'solar maximum' is coming April 8

January's solar activity lull meant it was unlikely that solar maximum had truly kicked in. As a result, McIntosh was waiting for a "surge" in activity before he was convinced we were entering the sun's explosive peak. And that surge may have happened in February.

Last month, X-class solar flares — the sun's most powerful type of explosion — made a major comeback, with one gargantuan sunspot spitting out three X-class flares in less than 24 hours, including the most powerful flare in more than six years. Photographers also captured stunning photos of a massive plume of plasma erupting from near the sun's south pole and ghostly plasma loops after another major flare, both of which are more common around solar maximum. 

So if solar maximum has (unofficially) arrived, what can we expect? It will likely last around a year, or maybe less, McIntosh said. Although sunspots will start to drop off, the number of powerful solar flares will actually peak after solar maximum, meaning we will have several years of increased solar storms, he added.

If any of the largest storms slam into Earth, they could impact ground-based infrastructure, trigger widespread auroras at lower latitudes and cause satellites to tumble back to Earth.   

Past research, has suggested that geomagnetic disturbances caused by solar storms can also disrupt the navigation ability of migrating animals, such as whales. As a result, we could see an increase in whale stranding over the next few years. 

There is also a slim chance of a once-in-a-lifetime solar storm, such as the 1859 Carrington Event, which could cause trillions of dollars' worth of damage to power infrastructure and satellites if it hit us directly. 

However, despite the current solar maximum being more powerful than originally forecast, it is still slightly weaker than other historic maximums, McIntosh said, suggesting that we may escape the worst effects this time around.

The explosive "devil comet" could rear its green-tinged, hornless head during the total solar eclipse on April 8. The city-size comet, which is currently racing toward Earth, may show up in photos of the rare astronomical event. And if it erupts before totality — the phase of the eclipse when the sun is completely blocked — the comet could also be visible to the naked eye, one expert claims. 

Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks (12P), also known as the devil comet, is a 10.5-mile-wide (17 kilometers) comet that circles the sun on a highly elliptical orbit once roughly every 71 years. 12P is a cryovolcanic, or ice volcano, comet. That means it occasionally erupts when radiation from the sun cracks open its icy shell, or nucleus, allowing it to shoot a combination of ice and gas, known as cryomagma, from its frosty innards into space. When this happens, the cryomagma expands the comet's coma — the cloud of gas and dust around a comet's nucleus — making it appear much brighter for the next few days. 

Last July, astronomers watched 12P blow its top for the first time in 69 years, and ever since, it has erupted reasonably frequently. During 12P's early eruptions, the comet's expanded coma grew lopsided. That made it look like it had horns, leading to its demonic nickname. However, during more-recent eruptions, these horns have been absent. Recent photos of the comet also show that it gives off green light, which is caused by high levels of dicarbon in its coma and tail. 

12P is expected to make its closest approach to the sun on April 24 before slingshotting around our home star and making its closest approach to Earth on June 2. This means that during the upcoming eclipse, which will be visible across large parts of North America, 12P will be a lot brighter than it is now and will be positioned very close to the sun. As a result, the comet could be visible to photographers with powerful lenses when the moon temporarily blocks out the sun's light, according to Spaceweather.com. 

For astrophotographers, capturing such a rare image would be a "dream come true," Petr Horálek, an astrophotographer based in the Czech Republic, told Live Science in an email. "Such an opportunity is truly very rare!"

Related: What's the longest solar eclipse in history? (And how does the April 2024 total eclipse compare?)

Arizona-based astrophotographer Eliot Herman, who has been regularly photographing 12P over the past year, is also confident that the comet will be visible via camera and is planning to stack multiple images of the event together to enhance the comet's light.   

12P will be positioned near Jupiter, which should be visible to the naked eye and will be located slightly above and to the left of the sun as viewed from the ground, Herman told Live Science. This will provide a great "spatial marker" for photographers to locate the green comet, he added. 

If the comet explodes in the days leading up to the eclipse, there is a good chance that it, too, will be visible to the naked eye, Herman said. However, these outbursts are "notoriously difficult to predict," he added.

Horálek, who has been tracking the comet for a while as well, also believes 12P could be visible with the naked eye — but only if a large eruption occurs shortly before. 

(Reminder: You should always use protective eyewear, such as official eclipse glasses, when viewing the partial phase of an eclipse. Only during totality, when the sun is completely blocked by the moon, is it safe to look at the sun with the naked eye. Failure to do so could result in permanent eye damage.)

Other astrophotographers are less certain about the comet's visibility during the eclipse. Michael Jäger, an Austria-based photographer who has also been keeping an eye on 12P, told Live Science that he is "very skeptical that the comet will be visible to the naked eye," even with a large outburst.

Past solar eclipses have allowed photographers to take equally rare and unique photos. Last year, during the hybrid solar eclipse visible above Australia on April 20, Horálek and others captured a stunning image of a large solar storm exploding from the sun during totality.

During the April 8 eclipse, the sun will also be at solar maximum, the most active phase of the sun's 11-year solar cycle. As a result, its corona — the outer atmosphere, which looks like a sea of ghostly white tendrils during an eclipse — will be especially visible, making this year's eclipse a once-in-a-lifetime event.

A giant, hyperactive sunspot that unleashed three X-class solar flares in less than 24 hours last week has continued to swell and is now pointed right at Earth. A period of unsettling quiet suggests that the growing dark patch could be gearing up for another massive eruption, which could smash into our planet with potentially damaging results, Spaceweather.com reported.

Sunspot AR3590 first appeared on the sun's Earth-facing side on Feb. 18 and quickly swelled into a dark patch several times wider than our planet. On Feb. 21, AR3590 spit out a pair of X-class flares — the most powerful type of solar flare — with magnitudes of X1.7 and X1.8. On Feb. 22, the same sunspot unleashed a massive X6.3 flare, the most powerful solar explosion in more than six years.

All three flares caused temporary radio blackouts on Earth, but none of them launched coronal mass ejections (CMEs) — clouds of magnetized plasma that can slam into our planet's magnetic shield as they fly through space. If any of these sizable explosions had launched a CME at Earth, the resulting plasma clouds could have triggered severe geomagnetic storms — disturbances in Earth's magnetic field that can allow solar radiation to impact ground-based infrastructure, trigger stunning auroral displays and cause satellites to tumble back to Earth.

Since the triple X-class flares, AR3590 has continued to grow, almost doubling in size. It is now one of the largest sunspots of the current solar cycle, which began in 2019, Spaceweather.com reported.

Experts predicted that the sunspot's unstable magnetic field "harbors energy for more X-class explosions," but so far, it has managed only a couple of weak M-class flares (the class below X-class) since the triple flares erupted, Spaceweather.com previously reported. This suggests the sunspot could be storing energy for another massive explosion.

The giant sunspot is currently pointing "almost directly" at Earth, according to Spaceweather.com. So, if another significant X-class flare does explode from the sun and launch a CME, our planet will be right in the firing line.

Related: 15 signs the sun is gearing up for its explosive peak — the solar maximum

AR3590 is now around 60% the size of the monster sunspot that birthed the Carrington Event — a massive solar storm in 1859 that is thought to be the largest solar storm in recorded history to hit Earth.

If a Carrington Event-level flare launched a CME at Earth today, it could cause long-term disruption to global power grids and wipe out most of the spacecraft in orbit around Earth, resulting in trillions of dollars' worth of damage. AR3590 is not large enough to trigger this type of solar storm, but even if it hurled a CME that was half as powerful at us — which is possible — it could still cause serious problems.

The recent increase in the size and frequency of sunspots, as well as more frequent and powerful solar storms, are clear signs that the sun is fast approaching the explosive peak in its roughly 11-year cycle, known as solar maximum.

Scientists now think that solar maximum could arrive within the first half of this year, which is much sooner than experts originally predicted. It will also likely be much more powerful than scientists initially expected.

As a result, there is a decent chance that even if AR3590 doesn't chuck anything nasty at us, we could still be hit with a supercharged solar storm at some point in the next few years.

They say all good things come in threes, but what about supercharged solar flares? 

A massive, hyperactive sunspot has just unleashed its third X-class solar flare — the most powerful type of solar explosion — in less than 24 hours. The latest flare, which is the largest of the current solar cycle, is the sun's most intense outburst since 2017. And an even more powerful explosion could be on the way.

This flurry of sun-shaking eruptions is a stark reminder that we are on the verge of entering the explosive peak of the solar cycle — the solar maximum — and are likely to see even more intense and potentially destructive solar storms over the next few years.

On Feb. 21, sunspot AR3590 — a massive dark patch several times wider than Earth — spat out two X-class flares in the space of seven hours, Live Science's sister site Space.com reported. These explosions had magnitudes of X1.8 and X1.7 respectively. 

But on Feb. 22, the same sunspot unleashed an X6.3 flare around 23 hours after the first, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This was around five times more powerful than the previous two flares, according to NASA.

Not only is this the most powerful explosion of the current solar cycle, which began in 2019, but it is also the most powerful since Sept. 10, 2017, when an X11.8 magnitude flare rocked the sun.

Related: 10 solar storms that blew us away in 2023

None of the flares launched coronal mass ejections (CMEs) — clouds of magnetized plasma that can slam into Earth's magnetic field, or magnetosphere, and trigger disturbances known as geomagnetic storms that can lead to vibrant aurora displays. 

However, all three spat waves of radiation toward us, causing temporary radio blackouts as they slammed into our planet's protective shield. There were rumors that the first two flares were also responsible for causing cell coverage outages from providers AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. But this was likely not the case. 

But we are not yet in the clear. AR3590 has a particularly unstable magnetic field that "harbors energy for more X-class explosions," Spaceweather.com reported. The sunspot only recently emerged on the sun's near-side to Earth and will be pointing at us for the next week, so if it does have any more violent outbursts it could hurl a substantial CME right at us.

If this were to happen, it could not only trigger auroras but also disrupt communications, interfere with infrastructure on the planet's surface and knock satellites out of the sky. 

Just the beginning 

Solar flares become more frequent and powerful during and in the lead-up to the solar maximum because the sun's magnetic field lines get tangled up and frequently snap, triggering explosive eruptions. 

Last year, there were 13 X-class flares, which was up from seven in 2022 and two in 2021, according to SpaceWeatherLive.com. Now, after AR3590's triple flares, we have already had five X-class flares in 2024 and we haven't even hit March.

The intensity of these flares is also on the rise. Within the last three months, the record for the current solar cycle's largest flare has now been broken three times following an X2.8 flare on Dec. 14 and an X5 flare on Dec. 31.

Scientists originally predicted that the solar maximum would arrive sometime in 2025 and be weaker compared to past solar activity peaks. However, after numerous warning signs that this wasn't the case, researchers updated their forecasts late last year. 

Experts now believe that the solar maximum will officially arrive in the first half of this year and be as active as past maximums. It may have already begun, but we won't know for sure until we near the end of the solar cycle.

If the solar maximum progresses as expected, there could be many more powerful X-class flares over the next few years. If they launch CMEs toward Earth, then there could be some serious consequences. 

A pair of powerful solar flares recently exploded "almost simultaneously" from two different sunspots located on opposite hemispheres of our star. The extremely rare phenomenon, known as a sympathetic solar flare, is another reminder that we are fast approaching the explosive peak in the sun's 11-year cycle, known as the solar maximum.

On Jan. 22, at around 10:30 p.m. ET, the two solar flares exploded at almost the exact same time from sunspots AR3559 and AR3561, which, at the time, were separated by around 310,000 miles (500,000 kilometers) — farther than the average distance between the moon and Earth, according to Spaceweather.com.

The flares had a combined power equivalent to a M5.1 magnitude flare, the second most powerful class of flare the sun can produce. The erupting twin flares also launched a wave of high-energy particles toward Earth that triggered a 30-minute radio blackout above Indonesia and parts of Australia when it slammed into our planet's magnetic field, according to Spaceweather.com. 

Solar flares can also launch fast-moving clouds of magnetized plasma into space, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which can barrel into Earth and trigger geomagnetic storms that create colorful auroras. But on this occasion, neither flare seems to have released a CME.

Related: 10 solar storms that blew us away in 2023

Solar flares can occasionally occur in rapid succession from the same sunspot; this can trigger "cannibal CMEs" if the flares both launch solar eruptions that later merge into a larger solar storm. But a sympathetic solar flare is a completely different beast. 

In the past, researchers assumed that a sympathetic flare was just a freak coincidence. But a 2002 study revealed that the flare pairs are actually linked together — or more accurately, their sunspots are linked together by massive, invisible magnetic field loops that arc around the sun. Therefore, the flares can be considered as two parts of a single explosion.   

The twin components of a sympathetic flare can be separated by up to 30 minutes, according to the study. It is unclear exactly how much time elapsed between the eruptions from the recent pair, but they were likely separated by only a few minutes if not mere seconds, according to footage captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. 

Sympathetic flares are extremely rare but they can become more common during solar maximum, when the sun's magnetic field starts to break down and becomes more entangled with itself, a 2022 study analyzing 40 years of solar flare data revealed.  

Solar activity has been quickly ramping up over the last 12 months. During this time, we have seen an increase in the number and size of sunspots, as well as more frequent and more powerful solar flares. 

Most recently, the sun unleashed a CME on Jan. 20, which was predicted to trigger a geomagnetic storm that brings auroras to parts of the U.S. on Jan. 23.

Scientists originally predicted that the solar maximum would arrive in 2025 and be weak compared to past maximums. But mounting evidence to the contrary has changed their minds — they now believe that the sun's chaotic peak could begin in the next few months, if it hasn't already. 

Even the sun is not above launching a few New Year's Eve fireworks, it seems. In the final hours of Dec. 31, 2023, satellites near Earth detected a gargantuan X5-class solar flare erupting from our star — ending the year with the single most powerful solar explosion seen since 2017.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the flare was accompanied by a gargantuan blob of high-speed solar particles known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), which may graze Earth's magnetic field today (Jan. 2), possibly triggering widespread auroras across the sky and minor geomagnetic storms. Typically, the best places to view auroras are near Earth's poles, but CMEs can push those auroras to much lower latitudes than usual.

Solar flares occur when magnetic fields on the sun become too tangled and snap like rubber bands, kicking up powerful waves of radiation that stream across space at high speeds. X-class flares are the most powerful type of solar flare, and they have been known to interfere with satellites, radio systems and power grids when the flares' accompanying radiation bursts pass over Earth.

The Dec. 31 X5 flare was the strongest of 2023, soundly beating an enormous X2.8 flare that launched from the exact same spot on the sun on Dec. 14. At the time, that X2.8 flare was also declared the most powerful flare since Sept. 10, 2017, when a gargantuan X8.2-class flare erupted from the sun, according to NOAA.

The New Year's Eve flare was also the strongest of the current solar cycle — solar cycle 25, which began in 2019 and is predicted to peak this year. The sun follows an 11-year cycle of activity, which reaches a peak called solar maximum about halfway through. Although the current cycle's peak was initially predicted to hit in 2025 and be relatively mild, an onslaught of solar activity in 2023 has prompted scientists to revise their predictions.

Solar maximum is now predicted to hit sometime in 2024. And if last year's intense solar activity is any indication, the peak will be a powerful one; in addition to these powerful flares, 2023 also witnessed the most powerful geomagnetic storm in 20 years, as well as a 20-year high in the number of sunspots observed in one month.

Live Science has always been on top of breaking news. But we've recently started taking a deeper look at topics our readers love. So was born our news features, which you'll find nowhere else. 

One of my favorite of these stories is actually a retelling of one we all learned in middle school — that the first Americans crossed the Bering Land Bridge about 13,000 years ago, flanked by massive ice walls on either side.

But while the broader picture of that incredible journey still holds, our understanding is being dramatically reshaped by the discovery of older archaeological sites and genetic analyses of ancient fossils and modern populations. Our archaeology editor, Laura Geggel, has covered the history of the Americas extensively, and when we first assigned the story we weren't sure how much new there would be to report. How wrong we were.

While digging into the continent's history, she learned that fossil footprints from White Sands, New Mexico date to about 23,000 years ago. Yet several lines of genetic evidence suggest people came a few thousand years later. Resolving this contradiction is going to be tricky.

Hopefully, in the coming years new archaeological sites will emerge — possibly along the submerged coast of British Columbia — that will help us reconcile the genetic evidence and the archaeological record.

As Laura says, "this story is far from finished."

The untold story of the first Americans

Our home star spits out solar storms in a waxing and waning pattern known as the 11-year solar cycle. NASA and NOAA initially predicted the sun would reach its peak, or solar maximum, sometime in 2025. But senior writer Harry Baker was covering each solar temper tantrum individually and noticed an uptick in activity. Then, a source at the National Center for Atmospheric research said their models showed an earlier and stronger solar maximum than NASA. Harry broke the story in June, and in October, scientists revised their solar maximum estimate..

The sun's explosive peak is coming. Are we ready?

In May, orcas rammed three boats off the Iberian peninsula. From her reporting, trainee staff writer Sascha Pare knew a pair of serial killer whales off South Africa were slaughtering sharks and eating their livers and that orcas were also taking down Earth's biggest creatures — blue whales. Then a source told her that off Washington, orcas had been playing with porpoises to death, a macabre game that must have had a "higher purpose," Sascha said, because they weren't eating the poor harassed things.

But what was that higher purpose: killing for fun, training, revenge, or boredom?

The answer, that orcas learn lightning fast through social networks, turned out to be both unnerving and awe-inspiring.

And stay tuned in 2024. We'll be diving into the Earth to study the births and deaths of supercontinents, zooming into the subatomic realm, where "quantum superchemistry" speeds up chemical reactions by billions of times, and traveling along with the minimoons that are our Earth's companions — and potential stepping stones for future space missions.

Solar activity has kicked up a gear in 2023 as the sun nears the start of the explosive peak in its roughly 11-year solar cycle, known as the solar maximum. As a result, our home star has been spitting out abundant and powerful solar storms, as well as producing other unusual phenomena. From supercharged X-class flares and cannibal coronal mass ejections to a "canyon of fire" and solar tornado, here are the 10 most impressive solar storms from 2023. 

Powerful X-class flares 

X-class flares are the most powerful class of solar flares that the sun can produce. Most of the time, these supercharged flares are exceedingly rare and often don't happen for years on end. But around solar maximum, they explode from the sun like there's no tomorrow.

There have been 12 X-class flares in 2023, which is more than occurred in the previous five years combined. Several of these have launched clouds of magnetized plasma, or coronal mass ejections (CMEs), that later smashed into Earth, including a surprise flare from the sun's far side from Earth, another that also triggered a "solar tsunami" and an explosion from a sunspot 10 times wider than Earth.  

In December, the sun also unleashed the most powerful solar flare for more than six years, which grazed Earth with a CME and triggered a widespread radio blackout across the Americas. 

We will likely see even more powerful X-class flares in the coming years.

Gigantic 'hole' in the sun 

In December, an enormous "coronal hole" wider than 60 Earths opened up on the sun's surface and began bombarding Earth with supercharged solar wind. 

Coronal holes form when magnetic fields on the sun suddenly disappear, which allows large amounts of plasma to escape into space. The holes also send large streams of unusually fast solar wind, or radiation, shooting out of the sun.

The solar wind triggered a minor geomagnetic storm, or disturbance in Earth's magnetosphere, which resulted in some vibrant aurora displays.  

Cannibal CMEs

A "cannibal" CME is birthed by successive CMEs, when the second eruption catches up to the first and absorbs it to create one massive CME with a greater destructive potential.

Like X-class flares, cannibal CMEs are normally rare but become more common in and around solar maximum. We have seen at least two cannibal CMEs this year and both have triggered geomagnetic storms on Earth. However, on both occasions, we escaped the worst effects of these conjoined storms.

There is also a high chance we will see more cannibal CMEs in the next few years.

Towering solar tornado 

In March, stunned astronomers watched on as an enormous tornado of fire raged near the sun's north pole for three days. The gigantic plume of swirling plasma was 14 times taller than Earth and rained blobs of plasma onto the sun's surface.

The rare phenomenon was caused by a massive loop of plasma, known as a solar prominence, becoming trapped by a rapidly rotating magnetic field. Eventually, the twister "overtorqued itself" and spat out the plasma into space.

The sun's overall magnetic field is stronger toward its poles, which allows large plasma structures like this to grow taller than on other parts of the sun. This was the tallest documented solar tornado on record.

'Canyon of fire' eruption 

On Halloween, a powerful explosion from the sun briefly opened up an enormous valley on the solar surface, known as a "canyon of fire," that was more than twice as wide as the contiguous U.S. and seven times longer than Earth.

The fiery chasm formed after a large solar prominence snapped off from the sun and shot into space, leaving a massive hole behind. Eventually, the canyon closed up as surrounding plasma filled in the hole.

Scientists were concerned that the catapulted plasma could hit our planet. But in the end, it missed us completely.

'Impossible' orange auroras 

There have been hundreds of incredible aurora displays across the globe this year thanks to the increase in CMEs and solar wind. On a couple of occasions, we have also been treated to supposedly impossible orange auroras, which haven't been seen for years.

Auroras are created when radiation from the sun bypasses Earth's magnetosphere during geomagnetic storms, which excite gas molecules in the atmosphere, causing them to emit light. Atmospheric gasses typically give off red and green light, while other colors such as pink are rarer. But no gases should be able to give off an orange light.

Instead, what we see as orange light is a mix of red and green light. These pumpkin-colored displays only happen when these colors align perfectly in the sky, which is very rare. But as the number of auroral displays has increased, the chance of seeing this elusive color has increased.

Enormous polar vortex 

In February, astronomers spotted a massive vortex-like ring of plasma circling the sun's north pole. The show lasted for around eight hours before the swirling fire seemingly disappeared. 

The vortex formed when a large solar prominence snapped off from the sun. But instead of shooting off into space, it became trapped near the sun's surface and began to spin around the star's pole, which has never been seen before.

Scientists could not explain exactly what was going on but the vortex may have been linked to the pole's stronger magnetic field, which could have held the plasma in place. The phenomenon was also similar to how cold air circles Earth's polar regions.

'Sunspot archipelago' bombardment 

In November, an absolutely enormous sunspot region emerged on the sun's surface. The cluster of dark patches, made up of at least four individual sunspot groups, was wider than 15 Earths, making it the largest active region of the current solar cycle.

This "sunspot archipelago" spat out dozens of solar flares in the space of less than a week, which triggered several geomagnetic storms. However, the bombardment was not as bad as scientists had initially feared it could be.

In general, sunspot numbers have also increased drastically this year. In July, the number of dark patches that appeared on the solar surface was the highest for more than 20 years.

Weird plasma waterfall 

In March, a massive, logic-defying plasma waterfall appeared on the sun. The wall of falling fire was taller than eight Earths stacked on top of each other.

The waterfall's official name is a polar crown prominence (PCP), which is a type of plasma loop that forms near the sun's poles and collapses in on itself due to the increased magnetic field strength. They are extremely rare but have been documented before.

Researchers are still unsure exactly how PCPs work. The puzzling phenomena start erupting slowly before accelerating and then collapsing back in on themselves and the falling plasma travels at speeds that are much higher than the sun's magnetic field should allow.

Butterfly CME

The sun has launched hundreds of CMEs of various sizes and shapes into space this year. But one of the most beautiful was a "butterfly" CME, which erupted from the sun's far side in March.

When CMEs erupt, scientists can watch them using a coronagraph, which shows how the ejected plasma ripples through the sun's outer atmosphere, or corona. Most CMEs look like rings or lopsided plumes in coronagraphs. But this CME created a perfectly symmetrical pair of butterfly wings.

Unfortunately, we will never know what caused this irregular insectoid shape because the sun blocked our view of the explosion.