The Sun emitted a significant solar flare peaking at 10:29 a.m. EDT on July 3, 2021. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the Sun constantly, captured an image of the event. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however …
The dark spot across the north pole of the Sun – as captured in this image on July 31, 2020, from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO – is an area of relatively cooler material in the solar atmosphere, known as a coronal hole. Coronal holes are regions on the Sun where the magnetic field …
On May 29, 2020, a family of sunspots — dark spots that freckle the face of the Sun, representing areas of complex magnetic fields — sported the biggest solar flare since October 2017. Although the sunspots are not yet visible (they will soon rotate into view over the left limb of the Sun), NASA spacecraft …
