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Understanding the Sun, Heliosphere, and Planetary Environments as a single connected system is a goal of the Heliophysics Research Program.

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Latest News and Features

A combined view from two NASA satellites of the coronal mass ejection that occurred on May 17, 2013, at 5:36 EDT.

NASA’s STEREO Detects a CME From the Sun

On 5:24 a.m. EDT on May 17, 2013, the sun erupted with an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection or CME, a solar phenomenon that can send billions of ...

SDO's view of X1.2 class solar flare on May 15, 2013.

Activity Continues On the Sun

Active region 1748 has fired off another X-class solar flare, its fourth since rotating into Earth view on May 13, 2013. It is not Earth-directed but ...

Impacts of Strong Solar Flares

Some people worry that a gigantic "killer solar flare" could hurl enough energy to destroy Earth, but this is not actually possible.

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MOSC released a Samarium vapor creating a red cloud of charged particles in the ionosphere.

Marshall Islands Campaign Completed

The launch of a NASA Terrier-Improved Orion sounding rocket on May 9 brought to an end a very successful campaign studying ionospheric activity and ...

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Latest Solar Images

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Quiet Corona, Upper Transition region	Chromosphere, Transition region;	Composite	Magnetogram of Photosphere

> More solar images from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)
> More solar images from Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)

Feature Stories

NASA Invites the Public to Fly Along with Voyager

NASA's twin Voyager spacecraft are on the verge of plunging into interstellar space -- the space between stars -- and two new Web tools let the public fly along.
Three Years of SDO Images

Since it first provided images of the sun in spring 2010, SDO has had virtually unbroken coverage of the sun's rise toward solar maximum.
EUNIS: Six Minutes in the Life of the Sun

The EUNIS experiment was successfully launched at 1:30 pm EDT on April 23, 2013 from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Preliminary data shows that the experiment performed as planned.
Solar Satellite Arrives at Vandenberg AFB for Launch

IRIS spacecraft arrives at VAFB for final preparations for a NET May 28 launch aboard a Pegasus rocket.

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News

Three X-class Solar Flares in 24 Hours

The sun's third significant solar flare in under 24 hours -- and the strongest so far of 2013 -- peaked at 9:11 p.m. EDT on May 13, 2013.