Stunning new Solar Orbiter images capture explosive activity on the sun
A new series of images from the Solar Orbiter spacecraft is giving scientists the clearest view yet of the sun's volatile lower atmosphere-and unlocking critical insights into the forces behind solar eruptions and space weather.
On March 9, 2025, while nearly 48 million miles from the sun, the Solar Orbiter spacecraft was oriented to capture a sweeping view of the solar surface, the European Space Agency noted. Using a 5x5 grid, its Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) took six high-resolution images and two wide-angle views at each position. The result was a massive mosaic of 200 images, stitched together to create the widest high-resolution image of the Sun ever captured.
"What you see is the Sun's million-degree hot atmosphere, called the corona, as it looks in ultraviolet light," the ESA explained.
Astronomers say these images reveal the "middle zone" of the sun, between its stable surface and its erupting outer corona, where magnetic fields twist and plasma eruptions begin.
The visible surface of the sun, called the photosphere, is about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Space.com. Strangely, the outermost layer of the sun's atmosphere-the corona-is much hotter, regularly reaching between 1.8 million and 3.6 million degrees. In some cases, it can spike as high as 72 million degrees, according to NASA.
This superheated outer layer is made of plasma, a hot, electrically charged gas. It's also where powerful solar events like flares and eruptions begin. Scientists hope the data will eventually help explain why the sun's outer atmosphere is millions of degrees hotter than its surface-one of solar physics' biggest mysteries.
The images come just as Solar Orbiter enters its closest pass of the sun to date. Solar Orbiter is a space mission of international collaboration between ESA and NASA. A team from University College London is using the data to better understand how solar storms develop. Understanding solar storms is key for improving space weather forecasting on Earth. The same activity that lights up the aurora can also interfere with satellites, GPS systems and power grids.
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Watch bright meteors flash across the Milky Way this summer
Warm summer nights are great for staying up late to stargaze. So keep tabs on the weather forecast throughout the season, because there is plenty to see in the sky. Watch for some of the brightest planets to be visible in the predawn and evening skies during the summer months. Plus, see the core of our Milky Way Galaxy crossing the sky each night, and keep a sharp eye out during two remarkable meteor showers, the first of which could be of alien origin and the second that counts as one of the best of the year. Here is our guide to the astronomical sights on display for Canada in Summer 2025: June 20/21 — Summer Solstice and Longest Day of the Year June 22 — Venus near the Crescent Moon (predawn) June 26 — Mercury near the Crescent Moon (early evening) June 29 — Mars near the Crescent Moon (evening) July 3 — Aphelion (Earth's farthest distance from the Sun for 2025) July 10-11 — Full Buck Moon July 16 — Saturn near the Gibbous Moon July 21 to 23 — Crescent Moon passes Venus and then Jupiter (predawn) July 28 — Mars near the Crescent Moon (evening) July 29 to 31 — Southern delta Aquariid Meteor Shower peaks August 8-9 — Full Sturgeon Moon August 11 & 12 — Saturn near the Gibbous Moon August 12 — Jupiter and Venus very close together (predawn) August 12 — Perseid Meteor Shower peaks August 19 & 20 — Crescent Moon passes Jupiter and Venus (predawn) August 26 — Mars near the Crescent Moon (evening) September 7-8 — Full Corn Moon September 16 to 19 — Crescent Moon passes Jupiter then Venus (predawn) September 21 — Saturn Opposition (closest, brightest for the year) September 22 — Fall Equinox Visit our for an in-depth look at the Summer Forecast, tips to plan for it, and much more! At 2:42 UTC on June 21, the Sun will reach its highest point in the sky in the northern hemisphere for this year. This 'pause' in the position of the Sun in the sky will mark the start of northern Astronomical Summer for 2025. This occurs just after midnight on the 21st for Newfoundland, but in the hours before midnight on the 20th for the rest of Canada. This solargraph image records the path of the Sun across the sky each day from summer solstice to winter solstice in 2023, interrupted only by cloudy skies. (Bret Culp) This is also the longest day of the year for those of us in the northern hemisphere, at least with respect to how much daylight we see. However, due to the timing of this solstice, something special happens for about a third of our country. From eastern Ontario to the Atlantic Coast, both June 20 and June 21 will have exactly the same amount of daylight, down to the second. That means there will be two longest days of the year! For the rest of the country, June 21 will be around one second shorter than June 20. So, it may still feel like there's two longest days of the year. To start off the season, early risers can spot the planets Venus and Saturn in the eastern predawn sky. For evening stargazers, Mercury and Mars will be visible in the western sky in the hours just after sunset. Simulated views of the eastern predawn and western evening skies on June 21, 2025. Note: the Moon is shown larger than it actually appears. (Stellarium) While the exact timing of when it rises and its exact position in the sky will change, Venus will continue to show up as the 'morning star' each day this summer. Similarly, each evening, Mars will emerge from twilight to shine there, getting closer and closer to the horizon with each 'return'. At the same time, Mercury will only remain visible in the west until early July. After that, it gets a bit too close to the Sun, but will pop up again in the predawn sky starting in the second week of August. Meanwhile Saturn will rise earlier and earlier, and thus will be visible for longer each night, as we approach the planet's "opposition" — its closest and brightest — at the end of the season. Even though we 'lost' Jupiter from our evening sky around the end of May, the giant planet can be 'found' again starting in mid-July. You'll have to get up early to see it, though, as it will appear in the morning sky instead, starting just before sunrise, and then rising earlier and earlier as the season progresses. Watch closely in the predawn sky during the second week of August, but especially on the morning of the 12th, to see Jupiter pass by Venus close enough that the two planets will appear to nearly touch. Jupiter and Venus pass close enough to appear to touch in the mid-August predawn sky. (Stellarium/Scott Sutherland) Also be sure to look up throughout the season to see the Moon close by to these planets. The Crescent Moon will be near Venus on the morning of June 22, Mercury in the evening of June 26, and then Mars on June 29. In July, the Waning Gibbous Moon will cross the sky with Saturn on the 16th, the Waning Crescent Moon will pass by Venus and Jupiter from the 21st through the 23rd, and we'll see the Waxing Crescent Moon near Mars on the 28th. This same pattern repeats in August and September, with the dates shifted a few days earlier each time. For August, we'll see Saturn and the Gibbous Moon on the 11th and 12th, the Waning Crescent Moon passing Jupiter and Venus on the 19th and 20th, and the Waxing Crescent Moon with Mars on the 26th. Then in September, it'll be the 8th and 9th for Saturn and the Gibbous Moon, and the 16th through the 19th for the Crescent Moon passing Jupiter and Venus in the predawn sky. On the second to last night of the season, September 20-21, look for Saturn in the southern sky. The ringed planet will be at its brightest, as this night marks Opposition, when the Sun, Earth, and Saturn align perfectly. Saturn centred in the southern sky on the night of September 20-21, when it is at its closest and brightest of the year. Inset is a simulated telescopic view of the planet and several of its brightest moons visible (at 1:45 a.m. EDT), which are numbered and labelled. (Stellarium/Scott Sutherland) This is the planet's closest distance to Earth for the year, so it's a great time to grab a good pair of binoculars or a telescope to see the planet for yourself. Also, as we're 6 months past the March 2025 'ring crossing', we can once-again glimpse the planet's beautiful ring system glittering in the sunlight. READ MORE: On July 3, at exactly 3:55 p.m. EDT, our planet will reach its farthest distance from the Sun for this year. This is known as aphelion (pronounced ah-FEEL-ee-uhn). At that time, Earth will be around 152,087,733 km from the Sun, or nearly 2.5 million km farther than its average distance of 149,597,871 km (1 'astronomical unit'). This particular aphelion is actually one of the closest we've seen in decades. The average aphelion distance between Earth and the Sun is 152,097,701 km. However, as the other planets exert their gravitational influence on us, our orbit around the Sun changes slightly year-to-year. This means that our distances to the Sun at perihelion (in January) and aphelion (in July) also change. Thus, depending on the year, we could have a 'farthest aphelion' (or 'farthest farthest distance') or even a 'closest aphelion' (or 'closest farthest distance'). This year we will be 9,957 km closer to the Sun than usual. That is Earth's 'closest farthest distance' from the Sun since 2001, when our aphelion distance was 10,122 km closer than average. There are three Full Moons in Summer 2025 — the July 10-11 Buck Moon, the August 8-9 Sturgeon Moon, and the September 7-8 Corn Moon. The three Full Moons of Summer 2025. (NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio/Scott Sutherland) After the 'micromoons' of spring, and the upcoming 'supermoons' of fall, these will be all 'average' sized Full Moons. In September, there will be a Total Lunar Eclipse on the night of the Full Moon, similar to the March 13-14 eclipse that was seen from across Canada. However, due to the timing of this one, we won't see it from Canada. It will only be directly visible from Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia. There could be livestreams of this celestial alignment, though, so keep an eye out for updates on the event. DON'T MISS: Every summer, we see two 'major' meteor showers, as Earth crosses a couple of overlapping streams of comet debris in space. As we pass through them, the bits of dust and gravel within these streams produce meteors streaking across our night skies. The first of these is the Southern delta Aquariids, which begin on July 12 as we encounter debris attributed to 96P/Machholz — an odd 'sungrazer' comet with a weird chemical makeup that could (maybe) indicate that it originates from beyond our solar system. For the first two weeks of the delta Aquariids, observers typically see only one or two meteors every hour, which can be traced back to a point in the sky in the constellation Aquarius. These meteors show up starting around 10:30 to 11 p.m. each night, and can appear anywhere overhead from then until morning twilight. The radiant of the Southern delta Aquariid meteor shower, early in the morning on July 31, 2025. The lunar phase during the peak (inset, top right) is the Waxing Crescent Moon. (Stellarium/Scott Sutherland) However, in the final few days of July, the number of delta Aquariid meteors jumps up, roughly doubling each night until they reach around 20-25 per hour on the nights of July 31 and August 1. After that, the numbers drop off again, but a few per hour can still be spotted each night up until August 23. Although not counted among the strongest showers of the year, delta Aquariid meteors still tend to be reasonably bright. In 2025, the timing of this meteor shower is fairly good compared to the phase of the Moon. Ideal conditions would be having a New Moon around the 31st or 1st, but this year there is a Waxing Crescent Moon and First Quarter Moon in the sky on those nights. Still, the best time to view the delta Aquariids is in the hours after midnight, when the radiant is higher in the southern sky, and that will be after the Moon sets on the nights of the peak. Earth plunges into the second debris stream starting on July 17. Left behind by Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, the meteoroids from this stream put on one of the best meteor displays in the northern hemisphere — the Perseid meteor shower. The location of the Perseids radiant in the northeast, at midnight on August 12-13, 2025. The phase of the moon is shown inset, top right, and the meteors in that portion of the sky are more 'washed out' due to the moonlight. (Stellarium/Scott Sutherland) As with the delta Aquariids, the Perseids start off fairly quiet for the first two weeks or so. The number of meteors then quickly ramps up in early August. During the peak — on the night of August 12-13 — the shower is capable of delivering up to 100 meteors per hour. Sometimes even more! The Perseids also have the distinction of having the greatest number of fireball meteors compared to any other meteor shower of the year. A 'fireball' is any meteor that is at least as bright as the planet Venus, and they can be visible for hundreds of kilometres around, even during a Full Moon or from under severe urban light pollution. If you spot a fireball in the sky, try to remember as much about it as possible — what direction you were facing at the time, where it started and where it ended, how many seconds it lasted, if it appeared to break up, and if you heard any noise associated with it — and report your sighting to the American Meteor Society. Watch: Perseid fireball captured on camera Click here to view the video The Perseids radiant — the position the meteors appear to originate from in the sky — is a special one. Most meteor shower radiants rise and set along with the stars. However, positioned in the northern sky as it is, the Perseids radiant never sets at this time of year. The meteor shower continues day and night, and we just have to wait until it is sufficiently dark for a chance to spot the meteors streaking overhead. The peak of this year's shower falls just a few days after the Full Moon, so we will have a Waning Gibbous Moon in the sky for most of the night. Unfortunately, this will cause many of the dimmer meteors to become washed out by moonlight, leaving only the brightest for use to see. For the best chance of spotting meteors, seek out the clearest, darkest skies in your area, and keep the Moon out of your direct line of sight. Given the less-than-ideal viewing conditions during the peak of the Perseids, the best time to get out to see summer meteor showers could be on the night of July 31 to August 1. At that time, the rates from both the delta Aquariids and the Perseids should roughly match, and with the Moon setting around midnight, the hours after should be dark enough to spy meteors from both showers crisscrossing in the sky overhead. The radiant of the Southern delta Aquariid meteor shower, at midnight local time, during the peak of the shower on the night of July 31-August 1, 2025. The Perseid meteor shower will also be active at this time, with meteors originating from the northeast. The lunar phase during the peak (inset, top right) is the First Quarter Moon. (Stellarium/Scott Sutherland) READ MORE: "This is the time of year when the Milky Way is visible as a faint band of hazy light arching across the sky all night," says NASA. "You just need to be under dark skies away from bright city lights to see it." The central core of our Milky Way galaxy is a mixture of bright stars and dark bands of dust in this photo captured from one of the best dark-sky locations on Earth. (Kerry-Ann Lecky Hepburn, used with permission) "What you're looking at is the bright central core of our home galaxy, seen edge-on, from our position within the galaxy's disk," NASA explained. The galactic core is visible in our skies throughout much of summer. You don't need to travel to the Atacama Desert in northern Chile to experience it, though. A trip out of the city, to get out from under urban light pollution, and a bit of time to let your eyes adjust to the dark, might be all you need. Look up your local chapter of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC), and check out any star parties they have on their calendar of events. At 2:19 p.m. EDT on September 22, the Sun will cross the celestial equator headed from north to south, marking the fall equinox for the northern hemisphere. Once we transition to Astronomical Fall, get ready for meteor shower season, when there's at least one meteor shower (but often more than one) active each and every night! Click here to view the video
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SpaceX rocket launch in Florida uses Falcon 9 booster that launched former NASA admin pick
The first of back-to-back SpaceX launches took off on time June 10, and the Falcon 9 booster supporting this launch was an interesting choice. SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 9:05 a.m. carrying 23 Starlink internet satellites to orbit from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The first-stage booster that powered this mission was the same booster that launched the Polaris Dawn crew. The Polaris Dawn mission was commanded and funded by President Trump's former nominee for NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman. The Polaris Dawn mission, which also included two SpaceX employees, performed the first spacewalk by a private company and traveled the furthest into space since the Apollo moon missions. Isaacman was Trump's pick to serve as NASA administrator, but on May 31 Trump dropped Isaacman, saying he needed someone more aligned with this goals. A new choice for NASA administrator has yet to be announced. "After a thorough review of prior associations, I am hereby withdrawing the nomination of Jared Isaacman to head NASA," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "I will soon announce a new Nominee who will be Mission aligned, and put America First in Space." The change came just days before a public feud erupted on X between Trump and SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk, who was close to Isaacman. On June 9, Isaacman posted the following to X in a discussion on what his plans would have been for NASA, which faces steep budget cuts in President Trump's proposal to Congress. "Spent the last few months assembling a pretty extensive plan—shaped by insights from a lot of smart, passionate people. No shortage of input — everyone loves NASA and wants to help. Maybe I will write an op-ed someday — but I didn't love being inundated with plans from people who thought they were uniquely NASA's savior — and I have little interest in doing the same," wrote Isaacman. "In short, I would have deleted the bureaucracy that impedes progress and robs resources from the mission (this is not unique to NASA it's a govt problem). I would flatten the hierarchy, rebuild the culture— centered on ownership, urgency, mission-focus alongside a risk recalibration. Then concentrate resources on the big needle movers NASA was meant to achieve," he wrote. When is the next Florida rocket launch? Live updates: 1st of back-to-back launch days to see SpaceX launch from Cape Canaveral Previous missions this Polaris Dawn booster flew include: NASA's Crew-8, CRS-31, Astranis: From One to Many, IM-2, and six other Starlink missions. Overall, it was the 12th flight of the booster. Just over eight minutes after liftoff, the booster landed on the Just Read the Instruction drone ship, which was stationed out on the Atlantic Ocean. Tuesday's launch was the first of what may be back-to-back SpaceX launch days. The launch of the Axiom Space Mission 4 (Ax-4) astronauts is set for no earlier than 8 a.m. on June 11 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center pad 39A. Originally set for June 10, the launch was postponed due to poor weather in the ascent corridor. Commanded by former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, the international crew of four astronauts will spend two weeks on the International Space Station. With the mission traveling to the space station, the mission must lift off on time or scrub for the day. The SpaceX booster from the Axiom mission will return to Cape Canaveral, creating an early morning Space Coast sonic boom. The FLORIDA TODAY Space Team will provide live updates beginning two hours prior to launch at Brooke Edwards is a Space Reporter for Florida Today. Contact her at bedwards@ or on X: @brookeofstars. This article originally appeared on Florida Today: SpaceX rocket launch in Florida used booster that launched Isaacman
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For 9 Days, Earth Was Sending Out Mysterious Signals. Now We Know What They Were.
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Here's what you'll learn when you read this story: Strange signals coming from the Arctic in 2023 were assumed to be a seiche (trapped water with waves sloshing back and forth), but this was never confirmed. Previous instruments used to measure seismic weather phenomena were not able to pick up enough information, but NASA's SWOT satellite eventually found that the signal actually was from a seiche caused by a landslide. Reconstructions of what the weather was like during the days SWOT picked up the signal also show that it couldn't have been anything but a seiche. As fascinating as bizarre signals from other planets can be—teaching us about earthquakes on Mars or auroras in the skies of Jupiter—sometimes even weirder signals come from weather extremes happening right here on Earth. For nine days in 2023, an unknown seismic pulse was generated by the Earth every 90 seconds. It first appeared that September, vanished, and then returned in October. The signals began after a landslide triggered by a megatsunami in Dickson Fjord, Greenland, and was thought to have been produced by a seiche, or standing wave. This wave had probably been stirred up by the tsunami and then trapped by ice in the fjord—but there was no way to prove it. Satellite observations were able to document avalanches and the tsunamis they caused, and scientists collected further data in a research station. There was just one problem—the hypothesized seiche was eluding detection. It remained a mystery, even though studies at the time found seismic data that seemed to align with the sloshing motions of standing waves. So, researcher Thomas Monahan of Oxford University decided to take a closer look. Using data from the KaRIn (Ka-band Radar Interferometer) instrument on board NASA's Surface Water Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite—an international collaboration capable of high-resolution measurements that extended into Dickson fjord—Monahan and his team finally found evidence for a seiche whose waves were slowly losing intensity. 'Based on the seismic attribution, and systematic ruling out of other dynamic phenomena, we conclude that the observed variability in the SWOT data is consistent with that of a slowly decaying seiche,' the team wrote in a study recently published in Nature Communications. Seiches can occur in lakes and other enclosed (or partially enclosed) bodies of water. The tsunami unleashed in Dickson Fjord had enough strength to leave powerful winds and sudden atmospheric pressure shifts in its wake, pushing water from one end of the enclosure to the other. The water then sloshed back and forth, oscillating for anywhere from hours to days after winds ceased. Tsunamis are often seismic phenomena, and the very long period (VLP) seismic signal that came from the fjord was the aftermath of a tsunamigenic landslide. Previous attempts at recording evidence for this particular seiche had been thwarted by the limitations of satellite altimeters, which did not pick up data during extended gaps between observations. They were also not able to record the differences in the height of waves beyond the area directly under the satellite. They were, however, able to get an especially accurate read on the water below. The landslides in Dickson Fjord happened right when SWOT was transitioning to its Science phase, during which it would orbit and survey most of the planet's surface from an altitude of 890 km (553 miles) for 21 days. This orbit was purposely out of sync with the Sun to lower the chances of misidentifying signal frequencies. The researchers went through the data from every pass the satellite made over the region for the weeks in September and October and used this data to create maps of the fjord, modeling it how would have behaved during different times after the landslide and the height differences between waves (which reached up to two meters, or about 6.5 feet). Reconstructions of weather conditions ruled out all other possible causes behind the signal, and convinced scientists that it could only have been caused by a seiche. 'This study shows how we can leverage the next generation of satellite earth observation technologies to study these processes,' Monahan said in a recent press release. 'SWOT is a game changer for studying oceanic processes in regions such as fjords which previous satellites struggled to see into.' You Might Also Like The Do's and Don'ts of Using Painter's Tape The Best Portable BBQ Grills for Cooking Anywhere Can a Smart Watch Prolong Your Life?
