Solar physicists have long known that the sun stores staggering amounts of magnetic energy, but the exact trigger that lets ...

A solar flare seen by the ESA's Solar Orbiter. Solar storms are semiregular events in which the sun belches gargantuan plumes of energized dust and gas towards the planet at speeds as fast as ...

Just as avalanches on snowy mountains start with the movement of a small quantity of snow, the ESA-led Solar Orbiter ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. An award-winning reporter writing about stargazing and the night sky. Thermal image of an eruption or flare on the surface of the ...

F or all of its life-sustaining energy, the sun is pretty chaotic. Roiling plasma covers its surface along with fluidic snarls of magnetic fields that birth solar flares. These fiery outbursts occur ...

Under the current forecast, the northern lights may be visible across much of the northern half of the United States, and ...

A solar storm occurs when the magnetic fields of the sun get twisted enough from its rotation that they snap. When this happens, they release massive amounts of energy into space. We are not in ...