The sun is becoming active again as it enters Solar Cycle 25. This week, scientists' predictions of sunspots were proven via photos from astronomers around the world. Giant sunspot AR2786 can be viewed with proper filters and may create strong flares that reach Earth.

EarthSky community members have captured the giant sunspot region - AR 2781 - currently making its way across the sun's visible surface.

Solar storms pose risks for society, but more accurate space weather forecasts appear to be coming soon. A team of researchers in Japan has developed a physics-based method for predicting large solar flares, including powerful and potentially dangerous X-flares.

The sun has passed from one of its 11-year activity cycles into another. Scientists predict the new cycle - Solar Cycle 25 - will be about as calm as the previous one.

Solar Orbiter's new views are the closest images of the sun taken so far.

A new timelapse from NASA’s SDO Observatory condenses an entire solar cycle into 1 hour.

Solar Orbiter swept as close as 50 million miles (77 million km) to our sun's surface. Now scientists are at work testing the spacecraft’s 10 science instruments, including the 6 telescopes on-board. New images, to be released in mid-July, will be the closest of the sun ever captured.

ESA's sun-exploring Solar Orbiter will be the first spacecraft ever to fly over the sun's poles. It'll study the origin of the solar wind, which has the potential to affect earthly technologies.

Solar Orbiter - aka SolO - will take the first direct images of the sun’s poles. Following Sunday's launch, the spacecraft will take a loopy path through the inner solar system, borrowing thrust from the powerful gravitational fields of Earth and Venus.

The clarity of these images from the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii is thanks to the telescope's 4-meter mirror, the world's largest for a solar telescope. "It's the biggest jump in our ability to study the sun since Galileo's time," a scientist said.