Recently, the sun has been ‘active’ again! If you noticed your phone’s navigation acting weird yesterday or saw incredible colorful lights in the northern night sky, don’t be surprised; you may have just personally experienced a solar storm! All of this is closely related to NASA’s research on the ‘solar magnetic field’ using supercomputers.
Let’s first talk about the sun; it’s not just about emitting light and heat. It possesses a mysterious magnetic field. Normally, the sun has a north and south pole similar to Earth, but NASA recently discovered a phenomenon called ‘magnetic field quadrupole,’ meaning that besides the poles, stable magnetic poles have also formed near the equator! This indicates an intense magnetohydrodynamics battle happening within the sun, leading to a highly unstable magnetic field structure that we on Earth can feel strongly.
In June and September 2025, the sun unleashed two significant magnetic storms. The June storm was particularly noteworthy, being the strongest G4-class storm the world has seen in recent years, lasting over 50 hours and attracting the attention of tech enthusiasts and astronomy fans. You might think this is far from us, but intense solar storms can cause satellite navigations to malfunction, temporarily disrupt radio communications, and even cause fluctuations in power grids! The September storm originating from the sunspot AR4199, although not as intense as June’s, still allowed auroras to reach several places in the northern hemisphere.
To understand these strange solar behaviors, NASA has been hard at work. In July of this year, they launched the TRACERS satellite system aimed at investigating how the sun’s energy affects and reorganizes Earth’s magnetic field. This project, led by the University of Iowa, employs two cooperating satellites that continuously traverse special regions of the Earth’s magnetic field to gather important evidence on magnetic field fluctuations and reconnections. In the future, this data could help us issue advance warnings for space weather, minimizing its impact on our daily lives.
Scientists are still puzzling over why the solar corona is so hot—hotter than the sun’s surface itself. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is getting close to answering that question. Recent studies have ruled out some old theories, and scientists are focusing on the mysterious S-shaped curvature of the magnetic field to see if it indirectly influences solar wind and corona heating.
In the future, NASA, the University of Iowa, and numerous astronomical research teams will continue to closely monitor these solar activities. In short, don’t underestimate the fireball above your head; aside from giving you a tan, its ‘mood swings’ might shake up our high-tech world one day!