The sun news, features and articles

The Instagram-worthy alignment of the setting sun and the streets of Manhattan is about to begin again. The annual spectacle is caused by New York City's gridiron layout.

New simulations suggest that the origins of the sun's explosive storms could lie much closer to its surface than first thought.

Vibrant auroras that were recently observed by millions of people across the globe were some of the most widespread in the last five centuries, NASA says. The light shows may have also reached the equator.

The strongest solar flare in half a decade just launched off the sun from the same sunspot group that triggered dazzling auroras last weekend. But don't expect northern lights this time around.

Auroras occur when charged solar particles bash into Earth's magnetic field and funnel toward the poles. The types of atoms these particles hit determines the color of light emitted.

Between Friday (May 10) and Sunday (May 12), people across the world were treated to stunning aurora displays as Earth's magnetic field experienced its biggest disturbance since October 2003. The supercharged storm also messed with satellites and caused power grid irregularities.

Space weather experts warn that Earth could experience one of its worst geomagnetic storms in years after a gigantic, frenzied sunspot released five back-to-back solar storms directly at our planet. The explosive event could trigger vibrant auroras across large parts of North America.

A sunspot so big it rivals the gigantic sunspot responsible for the Carrington Event in 1859 has unleashed another X-class solar flare, triggering radio blackouts on Earth.

Coronal moss grows, solar rain falls and plasma eruptions rear their gargantuan heads in this fiery landscape of the sun's outer atmosphere, taken by ESA's Solar Orbiter.

Satellite images capture striking differences between the 2017 and 2024 total solar eclipses that swept across North America, including variations in the moon's shadow along the path of totality.