Just as avalanches on snowy mountains start with the movement of a small quantity of snow, the ESA-led Solar Orbiter spacecraft has discovered that a solar flare is triggered by initially weak ...

Solar physicists have long known that the sun stores staggering amounts of magnetic energy, but the exact trigger that lets that energy explode in a solar flare has been stubbornly elusive. Now, a new ...

The Sun looks like a warm yellow sphere with a surface covered with glowing messy hair. The yellow glow extends to the edges of the image, with some regions brighter than others. Many bright yellow ...