The flare peaked at M1.3, but it was actually much more powerful than a typical M-flare. Hours of explosive uplift hurled a significant CME into space. However, it will not hit Earth. The sunspot is just outside our strike zone.
Sunspot 4405 is large and complex, and it is turning toward Earth. Don't be surprised if the next eruption is geoeffective.
https://spaceweather.com/

This is an "ELVE"--short for Emissions of Light and Very Low Frequency Perturbations due to Electromagnetic Pulse Sources. It's a rare species of sprite discovered in 1990 by cameras onboard the space shuttle. ELVEs hover about 100 km above the ground, and this one is about 200 km in diameter.
"The ELVE was generated by a powerful negative lightning strike in a storm in Vernazza about 300 km south of me," says Binotto. One bolt was so strong (-303 kilo-ampères), it generated an intense electromagnetic pulse (EMP). The red ring marks the spot where the EMP hit Earth's ionosphere. For comparison, normal lightning bolts carry only 10 to 30 kilo-ampères of current.
https://spaceweather.com/

Researchers in the 1970s adopted the term keogram to honor the Arctic peoples who lived under the lights. It distills an entire night of auroral motion into a single strip of brightness. Watch this animation to see how a keogram is made.
"I was very fortunate weatherwise here in Missouri to be able to record the three strongest geomagnetic storms of Solar Cycle 25 ... so far," says Bush. "They were all great. But one can tell just by comparing these keograms that the May 2024 storm was in a league all of its own with bright energetic substorms and dusk to dawn intensity."
Solar Cycle 25 peaked in 2024, but it is far from finished. For the next few years it will slowly decline. That's important because, statistically speaking, the declining phases of solar cycles are when some of the strongest storms occur. The Halloween Storms of 2003 and the Veterans Day storm of 2025 are good examples. We predict that Bush's keogram will grow even longer in 2026. Stay tuned!
https://spaceweather.com/

These are satellites crossing the field of view--members of a growing number of megaconstellations crowding low Earth orbit.
A rising percentage of long-exposure comet images submitted to Spaceweather.com show this kind of interference. Our photo gallery is rife with examples. Here's one of interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS being photobombed. And another. And another. The vast majority of streaks are Starlink satellites.
Astronomers have raised alarms. Future plans call for as many as 42,000 Starlink satellites--and Starlink is not alone. Amazon’s Project Kuiper has begun launching its planned 3,200-satellite broadband fleet. China is pushing even harder, with two separate megaconstellations on the drawing board: Guowang (13,000 satellites) and "Qianfan" ("Thousand Sails", 15,000-plus), Together, they could eventually rival or surpass Starlink in size.
If all these plans come to frution, the sky may one day host 100,000 small reflectors competing with celestial targets. Astronomers should take their long exposures now ... while they still can.
https://spaceweather.com/

SUNSPOTS AT SUNSET:
Sunspot 4197 is so large, it's altering the appearance of the setting sun. On Aug. 27th, Wolfgang Ott photographed the phenomenon as the sun dipped into the North Sea near St. Peter Ording, Germany:

"We were treated to a beautiful sunset this evening," says Ott. "The individual sunspot groups were easy to recognize."
The solar disk itself looks unusual--slightly squashed, almost egg-shaped. This is an effect of refraction. Thick layers of air near the horizon bend sunlight unevenly, distorting the sun’s outline.
The same thick air that deforms the sun also dims it, making the sunspots easier to see. However, don't let that lure you into staring. Even a dim sun can hurt your eyes, especially when it is magnified by optics. If you want to photograph the sunset as Ott did, please use the camera's LCD screen for safe viewfinding.
https://spaceweather.com/

The infrared space telescope found most of the ingredients we expect to find in comets. There's a fuzzy coma, volatile ices, and all the usual molecules: water (H20), carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO). If 3I/ATLAS is a spacecraft, it has an uncanny disguise.
However, there's also something strange. The ratios of the different molecules are quite unexpected and don't match what we see in Solar System comets. In particular, the CO2/H20 ratio of 8 ± 1 is extremely high. Only one other comet, C/2016 R2, is known to have similar chemistry, and astronomers have long considered it to be a "freak".

Typical comets have a lot more water in their atmospheres, with H20 almost always outnumbering CO2. It could be that water production in 3I/ATLAS has not yet fully "turned on" because it is still too cold. If so, solar heating might restore ratios to normal. 3I/ATLAS will reach its closest point to the sun (1.36 AU) on Oct. 29, 2025, potentially bringing forth a geyser of water vapor to mix with the other gases.
Or, maybe, 3I/ATLAS is just strange--like it came from another star system. Stay tuned for updates.
https://spaceweather.com/

"While flying the Dreamliner from Seoul Korea to Calgary Alberta, the sky was completely dark, and offered an amazing view of the Milky Way over Japan from 35,000 feet," says Melnyk, who photographed the galaxy from the cockpit.
The result is a breathtaking juxtaposition of Earth and sky. Below, the planet glows with the scattered lights of Japanese cities, their brightness softened by the aircraft window and high-altitude haze. Above, the stars blaze with unusual clarity, free from the light pollution and atmospheric turbulence that trouble ground-based observers. The dense star clouds and dust lanes of the Milky Way’s core are plainly visible.
Conclusion: 35,000 feet is a good place to see the Milky Way.
https://spaceweather.com/

"This is without question an extremely rare event, if not an historical one," says astronomer Stephen O’Meara, who has been scouring historical records for the last time this happened. "I have yet to find an occurrence of two simultaneous nova appearing at the same time."
"I thought I had found a pair in 1936 (V630 Sgr and V368 Aql)," he says. "But I looked at their light curves, and it turns out they were not at maximum brightness at the same time."
These appear to be classical novas. First documented by Chinese astronomers some 2000 years ago, the explosions occur in binary star systems. White dwarf stars steal gas from a bloated partner until the stolen fuel ignites in a sudden thermonuclear blast. It's less dramatic than a supernova, but still an awesome blast.
Nova V462 Lupi is currently near magnitude +5.9, while V572 Velorum, fading from a peak near +4.8, is the brighter of the two. Southern astronomers, this may not happen again for a loooong time.
https://spaceweather.com/

Each of the spikes in the graph above represents a pulse of X-radiation hitting Earth's upper atmosphere, ionizing the air at the edge of space. This has caused a rolling series of shortwave radio communication blackouts around our planet. The deepest blackouts occurred on June 15th (North America), June 17th (Hawaii) and June 19-20th (Hawaii). During those events, ham radio operators would have noticed loss of signal at frequencies below 25 MHz.
As northern summer begins, the flares are set to continue. Their source is unstable sunspot 4114, which will remain on the Earthside of the sun for a few more days before it disappears over the sun's western limb. Dates of special interest include June 23-24, when the sunspot will be magnetically connected to Earth via the Parker Spiral. Any flares around that time will accelerate energetic protons directly toward our planet and could spark a solar radiation storm.
https://spaceweather.com/

Although the flare was not technically X-class, it was close. Moreover, it was a slow explosion with lots of power "under the curve." The blast was able to lift a massive CME out of the sun's atmosphere.
Indeed, shortly after the flare, SOHO coronagraphs recorded a bright halo CME heading directly for our planet:

This is a very fast-moving CME. Type II radio emissions from shock waves within the cloud suggest it is traveling 1,938 km/s or 4.3 million mph. When it strikes Earth, the CME could spark severe geomagnetic storms with auroras at mid- to low latitudes. Stay tuned!
https://spaceweather.com/