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Explanation: Our Sun frequently erupts in loops. Hot solar plasma jumps off the Sun's surface into prominences, with the most common type of prominence being a simple loop. The loop shape originates from the Sun's magnetic field, which is traced by spiraling electrons and protons. Many loops into the Sun's lower corona are large enough to envelop the Earth and are stable enough to last days. They commonly occur near active regions that also include dark sunspots. The featured panel shows four loops, each of which was captured near the Sun's edge during 2024 and 2025. The images were taken...

We’ve been taught to avoid the sun at all costs. Is that right?For decades, many doctors have said that less is more when it comes to sun exposure. Ultraviolet light from the sun can age the skin and cause skin cancer, and people can get Vitamin D from food or supplements instead. But in recent years, some scientists have questioned this thinking after research suggested that moderate sun exposure may, at least in certain contexts, have some benefits. And that Vitamin D supplements may not always be a good substitute. “The ‘never go outside without SPF 50’ approach treated...

he U.S. Navy is sending the supercarrier USS Nimitz and the rest of its strike group to the Middle East amid a new buildup of forces in the region ostensibly for defensive purposes, U.S. officials have told TWZ. Overnight, dozens of U.S. Air Force KC-135R and KC-46A tankers had already been tracked heading east over the Atlantic Ocean. That has prompted speculation about the potential start of a major contingency operation, possibly around a shift in U.S. policy toward the ongoing Israel-Iran war, as you can read about in more detail here.U.S. air, naval, and ground forces have already been...

Approximately 14,000 years ago, the unprecedented solar event—now judged to be the most powerful known to have occurred—marked Earth’s transition into the Holocene epoch, according to the findings of an international team of scientists. The team traces the event to around 12,350 BC using a new climate-chemistry model specifically designed to reconstruct ancient solar particle activity. This expands the known timeline for ancient solar storms and raises the bar on the upper boundaries of their intensity. Although the event in question was already known from past observations of radiocarbon spikes in ancient wood samples, its scale and magnitude remained unknown....

A narrow-band image of the Sun at a wavelength of λ=588.9nm, that of a well known solar sodium line also known as the “NaD line.” The image was acquired during recent first light efforts with the VTF at the Inouye, and shows how precisely the structures within a sunspot are resolved. Each pixel in the original version of the image corresponds to 10 km (or 6.2 miles) on the Sun. (Credit: VTF/KIS/NSF/NSO/AURA) *********************************************************************** In a nutshell * The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope’s new Visible Tunable Filter (VTF) instrument has achieved “first light,” capturing detailed images of sunspots at an...

Rep. Nick Langworthy, a New York Republican, revealed that one of Governor Kathy Hochul’s top aids was indicted by the FBI on a raft of treason-related charges. Linda Sun, who served as Deputy Chief of Staff within the New York State Executive Chamber, allegedly worked at the behest of the Chinese government and was paid millions of dollars by the CCP. For context, Democrat Kathy Hochul, the governor of New York, has been mired in controversy since she decided to clash with the Trump administration over her punitive congestion regulations and insane open border policy. Linda Sun, the disgraced former...

British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s plan to give away sovereign territory in the Indian Ocean which contains a strategically critical U.S. base is so “stupid” he must be on drugs to consider it, a Republican Senator says. President Trump and the new U.S. Secretary of State (foreign affairs minister) Marco Rubio have been briefed on the Chagos Islands situation created by the British government, says U.S. Republican Senator from Louisiana John Kennedy — no relation to President John Kennedy — and that the dictates of the United Nations should be ignored. Reminding others on the Senate floor (1hr 55m)...

Scientists found that the level of carbon-14, an isotope of carbon, was much higher in rings from that year than usual. Some years later, looking at air samples from ice cores, scientists saw that there were elevated levels of beryllium-10 and chlorine-36 as well. The common factor in all these elements is that they are created when extremely high-energy subatomic particles hit Earth's air and ground. .... The only way to get particles at energies like this is from space, where powerful magnetic fields in exploding stars...can accelerate the particles to such high speeds. But the 774 event was so...

Residents in America's northernmost town of Utqiagvik, Alaska, saw their last sunrise for two months on Monday. The sun set at 1:27 p.m. local time on Monday and won't rise again until 1:15 p.m. on January 22, the Washington Post reported, where it will shine for less than an hour before sinking once more. This months long period of darkness is known as the polar night. Daylight will then gradually increase each day until the sun remains in the sky for 24 hours a day for roughly two months, in what is known as the midnight sun, during the summer...

Gird your loins Europe!!

Could this be the Perfect Geo-storm? October is off to a hot start: The sun unleashed a massive X-class solar flare — the “strongest of its kind,” according to Space.com — that has the potential to pummel our planet with a powerful geomagnetic storm this week. The supercharged sunburst erupted from sunspot AR3842 on Tuesday evening. It clocked in at X7.1, making it the second most powerful in the last seven years after the monster X8.7 magnitude in May, Live Science reported. This also triggered a coronal mass ejection (CME) — when plasma and magnetic particles burst forth from the...

A storm could be-fall us. Colorful leaves and cooler temperatures aren’t the only thing autumn is potentially bringing. Meteorologists predict that Earth could be blasted by a geomagnetic storm on Wednesday due to its timing with the autumnal equinox. A coronal mass ejection (CME) — when plasma and magnetic particles burst forth from the sun’s surface — occurred on Sunday, the same day as the official start of fall, Space.com reported. It reportedly occurred when a sunspot called AR3835 unexpectedly spouted an M-class solar flare — something scientists hadn’t predicted as said sunspot had appeared stable.

What would happen if our universe was any larger or any smaller? Would life still be possible here on earth, or, in fact, anywhere in the universe?

(NEXSTAR) – Geomagnetic storm conditions observed over the weekend strengthened Monday morning, creating a “major disturbance in Earth’s magnetic field,” the Space Weather Prediction Center said. The storm reached a G4 level in strength — the second-highest on the scale, classified as “severe” — just before 11 a.m. Eastern Time. The geomagnetic storm conditions may continue into the evening as solar flaring continues, forecasters said. “Severe levels is pretty extraordinary,” Shawn Dahl, service coordinator at SWPC, said in a media briefing earlier this year. “It’s a very rare event to happen.” At the G4 level, impacts on our infrastructure are...

"This was a powerful blast - More info to come on what sort of impact we should expect here on earth! This marks the 4th X-flare since May 3rd (X1.6, X1.2, X1.2, X4.5), making AR3663 the most active sunspot of Solar Cycle 25 so far."

Social media users trashed Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, after she turned her gaffe about the moon being "made of gases" into a slam of Republicans on social media Tuesday. Reacting to the backlash she received for telling school children that the moon is made of gases ahead of Monday’s eclipse, the lawmaker said that her Republican critics are hounding her because they have a "lust for stupidity." She gave a speech at Booker T. Washington High School in Houston on the day of the eclipse, telling an assembly of students, "Sometimes, you need to take the opportunity just to...

Scientists in South Korea have announced a new world record for the length of time they sustained temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius — seven times hotter than the sun’s core — during a nuclear fusion experiment, in what they say is an important step forward for this futuristic energy technology.

On June 20, 2013, an area on the Sun’s surface erupted, sending out a coronal mass ejection (CME) that propelled billions of tons of charged particles into space. The storm reached Earth about two days later. Most of us didn’t even notice. We were busy watching the Miami Heat beat San Antonio Spurs, 95-88 in Game Seven of the NBA Finals. If we weren’t into basketball, we may have been surprised to hear that Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) had became the Senate’s third Republican to publicly endorse same-sex marriage. Behind our backs, the Sun was churning out a storm of...

From the AI apocalypse to a full-blown nuclear war, it seems that there is an almost endless list of things that might cause the end of the world. But, if those terrifying fates gest us, there is one doomsday event that Earth can't avoid. A terrifying graphic reveals how the Sun will grow into a vast 'red giant' star, becoming so large that it will be the end of the solar system as we know it. Although this might seem utterly petrifying, you don't need to start worrying just yet. Dr Edward Bloomer, senior astronomer at Royal Observatory Greenwich, said:...

A massive solar flare exploded from the sun today, the largest of three X-class flares that have impacted Earth in the last 24 hours, and the most intense flare of the current solar cycle. Due to this event, there are significant high-frequency radio black-outs today and it is likely geomagnetic storm conditions will be likely around Earth in the coming days. This most recent X class flare is rated as a X 6.3. It generated an R3 radio blackout, which is considered “strong” on a 5-point scale, where R1 is “minor” with weak or minor degradation of HF radio communications...