solar flares

Powerful solar flares from the sun this week may amplify the northern lights displays over parts of the northern United States through the weekend, space weather scientists say.

The sun launched back-to-back solar flares directly at Earth this week, but the geomagnetic storms pose little danger, officials said.

Four spacecraft and one ground-based observatory recorded the eruption of a powerful X-class solar flare on March 29, making it the best-observed such event in history, NASA officials said.

The sun erupted with a major solar flare on Tuesday (Feb. 25), an X4.9 solar flare that is the biggest sun storms of the year. See how a familiar sunspot triggered the massive solar storm here.

A massive solar flare erupted from the sun on Tuesday (Jan. 7), rising up from what appears to be one of the largest sunspot groups seen on the star's surface in a decade, NASA officials say.

Colossal spiral-shaped flows of super-hot plasma have been found on the sun, completing a nearly half-century-long quest to confirm their existence, scientists say.