Solar flare
While most of us in the northern hemisphere celebrated summer solstice with our feet planted firmly on the ground, it looks like the sun had its own party 93 million miles away. Our parent star unleashed some fireworks of its own in the form of a solar flare.
NASA released a spectacular video on Wednesday that was captured by a sun-watching spacecraft and shows loops of superheated plasma raining down on the sun's surface.
The sun - giver of life, light bulb in the sky, and head honcho of our solar system - exhibits an extremely odd characteristic: it's actually hotter as you move away from the surface. Scientists may have finally understood a key piece to this puzzle by studying the sun's corona in unprecedented detail.
On Friday, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory caught two massive solar flares on camera.
The Sun emitted the seventh major solar flare of 2012 on Monday, causing a brief radio blockout, NASA said.
A report compiled by 85 scientists about scientific goals over the next decade puts a great deal of emphasis on understanding the sun better.
A pair of scientists have figured out that radioactive decay might provide clues to when powerful solar flares might erupt from the sun.