Northern lights occur when a solar flare interacts with Earth's atmosphere.

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The sun has had an active few days, firing several powerful solar flares and (plumes of searing-hot solar material out into space. On Tuesday (May 13), a sunspot on the sun's surface named AR4086 ...

In the span of two days last week, the sun released two strong solar flares — meaning the solar system experienced its most powerful explosions which can cause some communications blackouts on Earth, ...

A powerful solar flare erupted from the sun on November 14, 2025, causing radio blackouts across parts of Africa. This X4-class flare, the second-strongest of the year, originated from a highly active ...

Considered our solar system's largest explosive events, solar flares can sometimes be as strong as a billion hydrogen bombs. Those with enough energy output to rank as an X-class have the potential to ...

As August 2024 set another 20-year high for sunspot numbers on the sun, recent solar flares have yet to top two solar flares from September 2017. One of these flares, which took place seven years ago ...