All Categories - Ascension Now

LONG DURATION SOLAR FLARE:

29/3/2026

Sunspot 4405 erupted on March 28th, producing a very long duration solar flare. The explosion lasted more than 7 hours, shown here in a time-lapse movie from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory:

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/

HOW TO SEE THE ARTEMIS CREW CAPSULE:

29/3/2026

If all goes according to plan, NASA will launch the giant Artemis II rocket on April 1st, propelling astronauts to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo era. Using backyard telescopes, amateur astronomers may be able to see the crew capsule en route. Get ready now by logging into the JPL Horizons app for an ephemeris of the departing spacecraft. Here are some simple instructions.
https://spaceweather.com/

GLOWING RED RING OVER ITALY:

21/11/2025

For a few milliseconds on Nov 17th, an enormous ring of red light appeared in the sky over central Italy. Valter Binotto photographed it from the small town of Possagno in the foothills of the Italian Alps:

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/

X-CLASS SOLAR FLARE AND CME:

15/11/2025

Sunspot 4274 erupted again yesterday, producing a powerful X4-class solar flare. Unlike previous explosions, this one was not directly facing Earth. Most of the CME will miss our planet. Even so, a glancing blow is possible on Nov. 16th. NOAA forecasters have issued a G1-class geomagnetic storm watch for Nov. 16th and 17th.
https://spaceweather.com/

WHAT IS A 'KEOGRAM'?

15/11/2025

Answer: A way to display entire geomagnetic storms at a glance. It gets its name from the Inuit word for auroras -- Keoeeit. Daniel Bush of Albany, Missouri, created these keograms to compare the three great geomagnetic storms of Solar Cycle 25:

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/

COMETS ARE BEING PHOTOBOMBED:

28/9/2025

Comet Lemmon (C/2025 A6) is rapidly brightening and could become a naked-eye object in October. First, it has to fight through the interference. This movie of the comet from Lionel Majzik of Tápióbicske, Hungary, is streaked by a mixture of bright and faint lines:

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/

BIG SUNSPOT ALERT:

29/8/2025

In the sun's southern hemisphere, a large sunspot is turning toward Earth: movie. Sunspot 4197 is about 1/3rd the size of Carrington's sunspot. It looks even bigger though, because it is surrounded by a coterie of smaller spots. The crowd has a complex magnetic field that poses a threat for X-class solar flares. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text

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/

IS 3I/ATLAS REALLY A COMET?

29/8/2025

The most intriguing mystery in astronomy today is the nature of interstellar object 3I/ATLAS. Most astronomers believe it is a comet. However, Avi Loeb of Harvard University famously makes the case that it might be something else--like alien tech.
Into this debate comes new data from the James Webb Space Telescope. A paper just submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters reports that 3I/ATLAS looks like a comet, albeit a strange one. Here are the images from JWST:

Above: These JWST images show the distribution of carbon dioxide (panel b), water (panel c) and carbon monoxide (panel d). Most of the light is coming from CO2.

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".

Above: Carbon dioxide-to-water ratios in known comets. 3I/ATLAS does not fit the trend.

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/

THE MILKY WAY FROM 35,000 FEET:

30/7/2025

Summer is prime time for Milky Way photography in the Northern Hemisphere, especially the bright galactic core. The usual advice? Get away from city lights. This week, pilot Matt Melnyk tried something different: He got above them.

"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/

"EXTREMELY RARE"--TWO NAKED-EYE NOVA:

30/6/2025

A person could go a lifetime without seeing a star explode with their own eyes. Right now, people in the southern hemisphere can see two stars exploding at the same time. The first (V462 Lupi) appeared on June 12th in the constellation Lupus, and the second (V572 Velorum) on June 25th in Vela. They're both brighter than 6th magnitude, the threshold for naked-eye visibility.

Eliot Herman photographed V572 Velorum on June 28th using a robotic telescope in Chile.

"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/

URGENT! Schumann Resonance update JUNE 22! Hits POWER 52!

23/6/2025

Schumann Resonance Hits Power 52! What’s Really Happening to Earth? Today, Earth’s frequency has surged to an astonishing Power 52—a rare and powerful spike in the Schumann Resonance. But this isn’t just an electromagnetic anomaly... something much deeper is unfolding. Something powerful is happening beneath your feet and above your head. The Schumann Resonance — Earth’s natural frequency — has surged to Power 52, a level that signals a major energetic shift.
In this video, we explore what this spike really means for your body, mind, and soul. You’ll discover how this frequency surge can affect your emotions, disrupt your sleep, trigger spiritual awakenings, and even activate your inner gifts. Whether you're feeling anxious, wired, tired, or deeply introspective — you’re not alone. From spiritual insights to grounding practices, we’ll guide you through what this means on both a cosmic and personal level. If you've been feeling more emotional, more sensitive, or more alive—you’re not imagining it.

EQUATORIAL PLASMA BUBBLES:

22/6/2025

Earth's ionosphere is a bit like Swiss cheese. It contains holes called "equatorial plasma bubbles" tens to hundreds of kilometers wide. They're invisible to the human eye. New research published in the journal Space Weather explains how machines can be trained to detect these bubbles in optical images of airglow. The technique could lead to space weather alerts for big or strangely-shaped bubbles, which can disrupt GPS navigation.
https://spaceweather.com/

SOLSTICE SOLAR FLARES:

22/6/2025

As the solstice sun hangs high in the skies of the northern hemisphere, our planet is getting hit by solar flares. In the past week there have been two X-class, one near-X, and dozens of lesser flares:

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/

SEVERE GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH:

31/5/2025

A CME is heading straight for Earth--see below. NASA and NOAA models agree that it will strike Earth on June 1st. The impact could spark a severe (G4-class) geomagnetic storm with auroras visible across Europe and many US states. This won't be as big as the famous May 2024 storm, but it could be one of the bigger events of Solar Cycle 25 if a severe storm materializes.
https://spaceweather.com/

MAJOR SOLAR FLARE AND HALO CME:

31/5/2025

Big old sunspot 4100 finally exploded--and it was a doozy. On May 31st at 00:05 UTC, Earth-orbiting satellites detected an M8.2-class solar flare. The explosion lasted more than 3 hours:

A long-duration M8.2-class solar flare recorded by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory

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/