Skip to main content

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory spots biggest solar flare since 2017

Our sun is an ever-changing and dynamic system, and NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory recently spotted the largest solar flare seen since 2017.

Periodically, the sun will flash brighter in an event called a solar flare, often accompanied by a huge burst of plasma arcing out from the sun’s surface called a coronal mass ejection. These flares are associated with an increased sunspot activity, in which dark spots appear on the surface of the sun.

Related Videos

While solar flares can be potentially damaging to satellite communications and electrical grids here on Earth, you needn’t worry about this recent flare — it has not passed the threshold set by the U.S. government’s Space Weather Prediction Center which would require an alert.

The flare is of interest though, as it indicates that the sun may be entering a new phase of its cycle.

May 29, 2020 solar flare
On the upper left side of this image from May 29, 2020, from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory — shown here in the 171-angstrom wavelength, which is typically colorized in gold — one can see a spot of light hovering above the left horizon. This light emanates from solar material tracing out magnetic field lines that are hovering over a set of sunspots about to rotate over the left limb of the Sun. NASA/Solar Dynamics Observatory/Joy Ng

The sun’s activity varies over an 11-year cycle, during which the number of sunspots and the amount of solar flare activity changes. The sun is thought to currently be in a period of minimal activity, called a solar minimum, and the appearance of this large solar flare could indicate that the solar minimum is coming to an end. That would mark the end of the current solar cycle, designated Solar Cycle 24, and the beginning of Solar Cycle 25.

In order to know whether the solar minimum is actually coming to a close, scientists need to continue monitoring the total number of sunspots appearing on the sun’s surface. But this will take some time, as NASA explains in a blog post: “It takes at least six months of solar observations and sunspot-counting after a minimum to know when it’s occurred. Because that minimum is defined by the lowest number of sunspots in a cycle, scientists need to see the numbers consistently rising before they can determine when exactly they were at the bottom.

“That means solar minimum is an instance only recognizable in hindsight: It could take six to 12 months after the fact to confirm when minimum has actually passed.”

Editors' Recommendations

The sun’s activity is ramping up with more solar flares expected
First images of the sun captured by GOES-18's SUVI Instrument on July 10, 2022, showing a coronal mass ejection at different wavelengths.

The sun has been particularly active recently, and this weekend the Earth experienced the effects of a solar storm. The sun recently unleashed a coronal mass ejection (CME) on July 21 that has been traveling through the solar system and created a minor geomagnetic storm as it arrived at Earth.

https://twitter.com/NOAASatellitePA/status/1550491329267998720

Read more
The painstaking process of fixing NASA’s Lucy solar array issues
This illustration shows the Lucy spacecraft passing one of the Trojan Asteroids near Jupiter.

Engineers have been working to fix a problem with a NASA spacecraft, Lucy, which launched in October 2021 and is on its way to visit the Trojan asteroids near Jupiter.

The problem is with one of Lucy's large, round solar arrays. The spacecraft has two such arrays that collect energy from the sun, one of which deployed as expected, and the other of which experienced issues deploying. The arrays should have opened up and locked into place, but one of them failed to latch into place. Subsequent investigations found that the array had deployed to about 345 of 360 degrees.

Read more
New developments in solar sails could enable missions to the sun’s poles
Diffractive solar sails, depicted in this conceptual illustration, could enable missions to hard-to-reach places, like orbits over the Sun’s poles.

It takes a lot of power to get a spacecraft through Earth's atmosphere and out of its gravity. But once a craft has reached orbit, it requires relatively little power to move through space. In fact, even tiny amounts of consistent power could allow a craft to travel to the furthest depths of the solar system, which is the principle behind solar sailing. This technology attaches huge, thin sheets of reflective material to a spacecraft. Tiny photons of light from the sun bounce off this material and give the craft a tiny push forward, allowing it to sail through space.

Solar sail crafts like the LightSail 2 have proven that the technology works in principle. However, there are some limitations. For a start, solar sailing craft start off traveling much more slowly than those powered by thrusters. But a bigger issue is one of navigation. Solar sails have to work with the direction of sunlight available, and maneuvering them is difficult. Now, NASA is looking into new designs for solar sails which would improve their navigational capabilities.

Read more