NASA ramps up its efforts to understand space weather

This week, NASA selected three proposals for missions that could help us better understand the Sun-driven space weather that occurs near Earth. Space weather, like solar flares, can impact spacecraft and astronauts, and it has the potential to disabl...

Solar Storm Hits Earth, Results Auroras


NASA and the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center just revealed a solar storm has erupted from the sun as a powerful flare was formed from the surface. The flare reached it peaked around Tuesday...

NOAA DSCOVR Satellite Reaches Deep Space Orbit


More than 100 days after it launched, NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite has reached its orbit position about one million miles from Earth.Once final instrument checks are...

Solar Flare to lash out due to Sun Storm


A sunspot burst out with incredible force on Wednesday leading to a lot of radioactive energy. And this punch from the sun’s direction is aimed right in earth’s direction. The charged particles...

Massive Solar Superstorm Narrowly Missed Blasting The Earth Back Into The Dark Ages


As we blithely went about our lives on July 23, 2012, we had no idea how close we were to a Revolution-esque technology blackout caused by a huge magnetic superstorm from the Sun. The freak space...

‘Extreme’ class solar flare heading toward Earth, hopefully bringing nothing but auroras

Yesterday, a solar flare set off from the sun, launching a coronal mass ejection (CME) heading toward Earth, and it's set to make an appearance in our fair skies this Saturday. While the wave of charged particles headed our way is much weaker than the most powerful solar flares (like the X28+ gust from 2003), it ranks in the extreme (X) class, and it's already caused a wave of UV radiation that interfered with radio signals, not to mention an uptake in solar protons swarming around Earth. According to SpaceWeather.com, the flare could cause some geomagnetic storms, which could endanger satellites and astronauts in space in addition to possibly interfering with communication signals. That (relatively minor) risk aside, those of you living up north could be in for a pretty sweet light show, so check the skies for the aurora borealis.

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'Extreme' class solar flare heading toward Earth, hopefully bringing nothing but auroras originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Jul 2012 16:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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