A new method for predicting large solar flares

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.

Solar Cycle 25 is here

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 1st views of the sun

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

10 years of the sun in 1 hour

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

ESA’s Solar Orbiter made its 1st close approach to the sun on June 15

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.

Liftoff! Solar Orbiter launches successfully

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.

NASA to broadcast Sunday’s Solar Orbiter launch

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.

Newest solar telescope releases its 1st images

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.

Scientists see a new kind of explosion on the sun

A new kind of magnetic explosion, called forced magnetic reconnection, was seen for the first time in images from NASA’s SDO spacecraft. Learn more in this beautiful video.

Parker Solar Probe sheds light on our local star

Parker Solar Probe - now in its 4th orbit around the sun - can endure heat and radiation like no previous mission. This week, 4 new studies in Nature reveal new insights about the sun's mysterious corona and solar wind.

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