NOAA
Every Cosmic Herald story on NOAA — missions, launches, discoveries, and the business of space, newest first.
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Stargazing
Sunspot AR4485 Fires an M1.2 Flare as CMEs Set Up a G1-G2 Storm Watch Through Midweek
Departing sunspot AR4485 unleashed an M1.2 flare and a radio blackout before rotating off the disk, while a trailing coronal mass ejection could nudge Earth's geomagnetic field to G1 storm levels late this week.
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Stargazing
Sunspot AR4482 Unleashes M-Class Flares, Raising Aurora Odds Into the Weekend
Sunspot AR4482 fired off an M4.0 flare and a major filament eruption on July 7, and with a coronal-hole wind stream and CME now converging on Earth, forecasters give mid-to-high latitudes a real shot at aurora through the weekend.
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Stargazing
A Beta-Gamma-Delta Sunspot Keeps Firing: Radio Blackout Risk Runs Through the Weekend
Active region AR4482, a magnetically tangled beta-gamma-delta sunspot, has been lobbing M-class flares at Earth since July 8, and NOAA gives it decent odds of another one through July 11 — with a side of aurora from an incoming solar wind stream.
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Stargazing
X1.3 Flare and Surprise G3 Storm Send Aurora Across 30 US States for July 4th Weekend
A CME-driven G3 storm outperformed its own forecast to paint aurora across 30-plus US states on July 4, then a fresh X1.3 flare from newly numbered AR4482 kept the sun's holiday fireworks going.
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Stargazing
Sun Unleashes Surprise G3 Storm on July 4th, Pushing Auroras Into Utah and Nevada
A CME from a June 30 X1.1 flare overperformed its forecast, hitting G3 (Strong) and dragging the aurora as far south as Utah, Colorado and Nevada on Independence Day.
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Stargazing
Aurora Alert: An X1.1 Flare and Back-to-Back CMEs Open a June 30-July 1 Storm Window
NOAA flagged G1-G2 storm conditions for June 30 into July 1 as a June 26 CME arrived and a slower June 27 CME chased behind, while AR4479 fired an X1.1 flare at 20:50 UTC - putting aurora within reach of northern-tier U.S. skies.
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Stargazing
A June 26 CME Is Inbound: NOAA Posts a Storm Watch and the Aurora Could Reach the Northern U.S.
A coronal mass ejection that left the Sun on June 26 is forecast to reach Earth around June 30, and NOAA has issued a geomagnetic storm watch — with aurora possibly visible as far south as Seattle and Minneapolis.
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Stargazing
A Surprise G1 Geomagnetic Storm Lit Up June 25 as a New Sunspot Woke Up
A G1 geomagnetic storm crossed the threshold at 4:43 UTC on June 25, 2026, driven by coronal-hole solar wind and a possible glancing CME, as new sunspot region AR4478 fired most of the day's 16 C-class flares.
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Stargazing
The aurora window isn't closing yet — why 2026 can still light up the sky
The Sun's official peak passed in 2024, but Solar Cycle 25 looks to be double-humped, and the descending phase has a history of throwing some of the biggest geomagnetic storms of all. What that means if you're still chasing the northern lights.
