Our next cargo mission to the @Space_Station is lifting off from Florida as soon as Tuesday, May 12. Flying aboard: medical research to understand our blood and bones, a new space weather experiment, and supplies and hardware for the crew. Read more:

It’s #SunDay#! Here’s your space weather report for the week of Sept. 11 - Sept. 17: • 0 M-class flares • 0 C-class flares (only counted if associated with coronal mass ejections) • 17 coronal mass ejections • 0 geomagnetic storms This video from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the week’s activity. A quiet week on the Sun as a cluster of active regions move across the Sun’s disk and around the limb. As of Friday, Sept. 18, there are no active regions on the Earth-facing side of the Sun. The dark “strips” across the Sun that emerge towards the end of the video are coronal holes. These cooler bands of solar material on the Sun (which make them appear darker) are where the Sun’s magnetic field lines open up to space, allowing high-speed solar wind to escape. More about solar activity and space weather:

It’s #SunDay#! Here’s your space weather report for the week of Sept. 4 - Sept. 10: • 2 M-class flares • 6 C-class flares • 29 coronal mass ejections • 0 geomagnetic storms This video from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the week’s activity. The Sun delivered a “one-two punch” of flares on Sept. 5, with an M1.0-class flare erupting from the Sun’s western limb (right side) at about 0:43 seconds into the video, followed by a C8.5-class flare from the eastern limb (left side) at about 0:46 seconds. Both flares also produced coronal mass ejections that swept through space to either side of Earth. By the end of the video, we have nine active regions on the Earth-facing side of the Sun, most of them clustering together right in the middle of the Sun’s disk. More about solar eruptions and space weather:

It’s #SunDay#! Here’s your space weather report for the week of Aug 28 - Sept 3 • 1 M-class flare • 4 C-class flares • 55 coronal mass ejections • 0 geomagnetic storms This video from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows the week’s activity. While this week’s flare count was fairly low, there was a surplus of coronal mass ejections. The week’s strongest flare was an M3-class, which can be seen erupting from an active region on the eastern limb (left side of Sun) at about 3:02. This active region is rotating onto the Earth-facing side of the Sun, so any eruptions from it in the near future may have some impact on Earth. More about solar eruptions and space weather:

It’s #SunDay#! Here’s your space weather report for the week of Aug 21 - 27: • 8 M-class flares • 3 C-class flares • 32 coronal mass ejections • 0 geomagnetic storms This video from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows the week’s activity. Active region AR14513 — the bright cluster of activity that has made its way across the Sun’s disk this week, appearing in the center at about 2:10 in this video — produced all but two of this week’s flares, though none reached X-class. The strongest flare in this period was an M6.9, also produced by AR14513, appearing at about 1:57 in the video. It still has a few more days on the Earth-facing side of the Sun, so we'll keep watch! More about solar eruptions and space weather:

It’s #SunDay#! Here’s your space weather report for the week of Aug 14 - 20: • 4 M-class flares • 3 C-class flares • 22 coronal mass ejections • 0 geomagnetic storms This video from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows the week’s activity. All of this week’s M-class flares happened in the last two days of this reporting period. Their source is the active region AR14513, which appears as a bright cluster that rotates into view from the Sun’s eastern limb (left side) starting on the 19th, about 2:30 into this video. We’ll keep an eye on this busy active region as it moves into an Earth-facing position over the coming days. Related: New NASA-funded efforts to predict active regions before they emerge:

It’s #SunDay#! Here’s your space weather report for the week of Aug 7 - 13: • 0 M-class flares • 1 C-class flare • 16 coronal mass ejections • 1 geomagnetic storm This video from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows the week’s activity. It was a quite calm week on the Sun, with a moderate geomagnetic storm occurring on Aug. 8 after several coronal mass ejections arrived at Earth together. There was also a total solar eclipse on Aug. 12. How come SDO didn't see it? SDO follows a “geosynchronous” orbit, orbiting Earth at the same rate as Earth spins. The spacecraft effectively “hovers” over its ground station in White Sands, New Mexico. White Sands was outside of the eclipse’s path, so SDO didn’t see it. Visualize SDO’s orbit:

It’s #SunDay#! Here’s your space weather report for the week of July 24 - July 30: • 3 M-class flares • 1 C-class flare • 31 coronal mass ejections • 0 geomagnetic storms This video from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows the week’s activity. SDO remains in its Earth eclipse period, with daily “blackouts” as the spacecraft passes behind our planet, which will continue through Aug. 2. This week’s strongest flare, an M3.2-class eruption, appears at about 1:10 into the video as a brief flash in the middle of the Sun’s disk. Learn more about the Sun and space weather: Note: This week's video does not include imagery from July 30th due to a temporary issue with our data processing pipeline that is being resolved.