Solar physicists often speak of the sun's X-ray flux as being high, or low. Solar flares are like waves on the background ocean of the sun's X-ray flux.
Sun activity for the week of April 4 to 10, 2022. This week has been relatively quiet. But we had an unexpected (albeit brief) strong geomagnetic storm during the night of April 9-10.
Sun activity for the week of March 21 to 27, 2022. An M-class flare on March 26, 2022, sent out a "solar tsunami" aka as an EIT wave. Read more and see images here.
An aurora season occurs in March and October each year, due to the way the magnetic fields of the sun and the Earth work in conjunction with sun-Earth geometry.
C. Alex Young is a solar astrophysicist studying the Sun and space weather. Alex is passionate about sharing science with diverse audiences. This led him to start The Sun Today with his designer wife, Linda. First through Facebook and Twitter then adding an extensive website thesuntoday.org, the two work together to engage the public about the Sun and its role in our solar system. Alex led national engagement efforts for the 2017 total solar eclipse. He is the Associate Director for Science in the Heliophysics Science Division at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.