NOAA
Every Cosmic Herald story on NOAA — missions, launches, discoveries, and the business of space, newest first.
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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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NASA & Agencies
Congress Presses NASA and NOAA on Space Weather Readiness as Solar Cycle 25 Peaks
Lawmakers grilled NASA's and NOAA's top space weather officials on grid, GPS, and communications risks the same week an X1.1 flare and G3 storms lit up July 4th skies with aurora.
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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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Science & Discovery
Sunspot AR4479 Fires an X1 Flare and Ten M-Flares, and NOAA Posts a G2 Watch for the Fourth of July Weekend
Active Region 4479 threw an X1.1 flare and roughly ten M-class flares in a single day, launching a staggered train of Earth-directed CMEs. NOAA issued G1-G2 storm watches for July 3-4, opening a holiday-weekend aurora window that could reach the northern-tier United States.
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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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Science & Discovery
The Sun is at its most active in two decades. What solar maximum actually means.
Solar Cycle 25 has been more active than forecasters predicted, delivering some of the strongest geomagnetic storms in years and producing aurora visible at unusually low latitudes. What solar maximum means for technology, satellites, and power grids — and how we prepare — is more relevant now than it has been in a generation.
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Science & Discovery
The Sun occasionally fires plasma clouds at Earth that can knock out power grids. We're not prepared.
Coronal mass ejections — billion-ton clouds of magnetized plasma from the Sun — can trigger geomagnetic storms that damage transformers, disable satellites, and disrupt GPS. The 1859 Carrington Event caused telegraph fires; a comparable storm today would have catastrophic infrastructure consequences.
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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.
