ESA spacecraft observe highest ground level enhancement of Solar Cycle 25 and subsequent geomagnetic storm

25 November 2025

On 11 November 2025, a very powerful X5 solar flare erupted from active region NOAA (AR) 14274. It was recorded by the STIX instrument on Solar Orbiter, peaking around 10:04 UTC. At the same time, ESA’s SMOS spacecraft detected a large radio burst at 1.4 GHz, which persisted for approximately... read more

Lessons from the November 2025 solar storm

21 November 2025

Mid November, Earth was hit by a large solar storm. Within 48 hours, the Sun launched three consecutive coronal mass ejections (CME) which struck our planet, triggering a severe geomagnetic storm, which peaked for about six hours, before calming down.

Despite its intensity, the storm’s impact on critical technologies was limited, and... read more

Science Nugget: Thin Coronal Jets and Plasmoid-mediated Reconnection: Insights from Solar Orbiter Observations and Bifrost Simulations.

19 November 2025

Coronal Bright Points (CBPs) are ubiquitous small-scale magnetic structures in the solar corona, consisting of million-Kelvin loops rooted in the photospheric network. They radiate copious amounts of energy and cover the Sun almost uniformly, making them key ingredients in the quest to understand coronal heating. CBPs are also textbook sites... read more

A solar prominence hovers over the Sun

14 November 2025

The Sun is always mesmerising to watch, but Solar Orbiter captured a special treat on camera: a dark ‘prominence’ sticking out from the side of the Sun.  

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Science Nugget: Near Continuous Tracking of a Super Active Region for Three Solar Rotations

12 November 2025

Active regions are regions on the Sun where extended, strong, and often complex magnetic fields are measured. They are formed when strongly magnetized plasma emerges from the interior of the Sun. They often host strong eruptive events like flares and coronal mass ejections, during which the stored magnetic energy is converted into... read more

Science Nugget: The Solar Orbiter merged magnetic field dataset

5 November 2025

Like other space missions, Solar Orbiter embarks two experiences to fully measure the varying magnetic field of the solar wind: the fluxgate magnetometer MAG, which is best suited for frequencies from DC to a few Hertz, and the search coil magnetometer SCM, which is best suited for frequencies above a few Hertz. Measuring the magnetic field... read more

Science Nugget: Generalized Two Thermal Regimes Approach: Bipoly Fluid Modeling

15 October 2025

The observed non-adiabatic evolution of the solar wind leaving the solar atmosphere traduce the presence of heating mechanism. Regarding the inner heliosphere evolution, observational studies [1,2,3] have shown that the temperature of protons and electrons appear to decrease slower with radial distance than a theoretically expected. The... read more

Science Nugget: First coordinated observations between Solar Orbiter and the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope

8 October 2025

The Solar Orbiter mission and US National Science Foundation DKIST are two of the most advanced observatories available to the solar physics community. Together, these two high-resolution observatories mark a new era in solar observation. By capturing the Sun from two distinct vantage points, they offer stereoscopic views of the solar... read more

Science nugget: Solar Orbiter’s CoSEE-Cat: A large statistical study of the acceleration and transport of energetic electrons in the corona and inner heliosphere

1 October 2025

ESA’s Solar Orbiter provides two unique advantages for the study of SEEs. Firstly, its comprehensive suite of in-situ and remote-sensing instruments covers all relevant types of observables. Having all these assets on a single platform is a great advantage and results in a high duty cycle. Secondly, Solar Orbiter samples SEEs over a wide... read more

Science nugget: Observational Constraints on the Radial Evolution of O6+ Temperature and Differential Flow in the Inner Heliosphere

24 September 2025

This work examines the radial evolution of O6+ drift speed and temperature between 0.3 and 1 au to analyze its behavior in the solar wind.

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