Just got out from watching The Odyssey in IMAX (opening night). A phenomenal film, Christopher Nolan has done it again! Probably an immediate top 5 of all time for me.

Two decent-sized filaments (channels of plasma suspended in the Sun’s atmosphere) erupted from the Sun’s western edge yesterday. Although eruptions from this location on the Sun rarely create enhanced aurora at Earth, they are (in my opinion) the most visually-spectacular events to watch on the Sun!

They look very similar to my Spooky!

Spotted at the vet’s office. Thinking it through, these things are actually pretty decent models of how magnetic fields and particles work in the Sun’s atmosphere! (See random example scientific diagrams I found for comparison)

I am very happy to share that my newest book, “Little Book of Eclipses”, is now available worldwide! The book is a comprehensive guide to solar and lunar eclipses, including everything you need to know for the three upcoming European solar eclipses in 2026/2027/2028!

Last night the Sun produced a huge eruption of filament plasma. The eruption is not heading towards Earth, but certainly beautiful to watch!

Here’s a closer look at the July 4th X-class solar flare! A beautiful off-limb event, complete with coronal rain and supra-arcade downflows.

The Sun produced some Fourth of July fireworks this evening, with an X-class solar flare on the Sun’s eastern edge. This region on the Sun will rotate to face Earth in the coming days!

The Sun has really woken up over the past 48 hours, producing multiple solar flares (including an “X-class” event), across 4 different regions. Further large flares are likely in the coming days!

Here are some snapshots of the event!

Early yesterday the Sun produced multiple large eruptions of filament plasma from opposite sides of the Sun. My research investigates solar flares, but I’ll readily admit that filament eruptions like this are the most beautiful show the Sun provides!

I’ve started sharing my best solar flare movies on YouTube. My most recent video just posted! youtu.be/Lv5--UYPcvw?...

Some snapshots:

A beautiful filament of plasma erupted from near the Sun’s north pole today! Beautiful stuff.

‘B is for Bird’, spotted in Boulder Colorado!

Yesterday the Sun did this, and today we have the world’s largest solar telescope (the 4m diameter ‘Inouye Solar Telescope’) pointing at the same region for a few hours – as part of our solar flare observing proposal! Fingers crossed that the Sun’s fireworks continue today.

For those who hadn’t seen already, there are currently three coronal mass ejections en route to the Earth (launched by solar flares on the Sun yesterday). We are expecting these eruptions to merge together, reaching Earth and triggering a strong geomagnetic storm tonight!

The Sun has really woken up today, with some beautiful edge-on filament eruptions addition to the Earth-directed solar flares we just experienced. Our local star is certainly beautiful!

The Sun just produced a large Earth-facing solar flare, almost surpassing the threshold for the ‘strongest solar flare’ category. However, it appears this flare produced no notable eruption, meaning the event is now over with (probably) nothing currently heading our way.

This eruptive solar flare (from March 2025) is one of my favourite solar events in recent years. I’ve been revisiting this flare recently, as I’ve been analysing some exciting data (not pictured here) of the event! I’ll share those observations later this year.

Today I (alongside 54k other runners) ran Bolder Boulder : “America’s All-Time Best 10K”. Today’s race marks a year since my first run beyond 5k, having since progressed to running a marathon earlier this month. I’m still not quick by any means, but thrilled with my progress!

My new book releases next month!! ‘Little Book of Eclipses’, co-authored with the brilliant Tom Kerss, explores the science, history and culture of both solar and lunar eclipses, alongside over a decade of eclipse maps for upcoming eclipses.

Here is a unique view of a solar flare, captured by the NASA IRIS space telescope last month. We’re used to seeing ‘saturated’ images of flares, but this movie shows an unsaturated view of solar flare heating and plasma motions in the lower solar atmosphere!

Bones is helping me with work this morning!

Over the weekend, the Sun produced this photogenic coronal mass ejection! The eruption was not pointed at Earth, but its source region will rotate to face us later this week. This means that any future eruptions could potentially be Earth-directed. Watch this space!

Here’s the entirety of April on the Sun! The month was pretty quiet (particularly welcome during the Artemis II launch), picking up towards the end of the month. Overall, sunspot numbers were in the lowest three months since 2022 – continuing the decline in solar activity!

Strong solar flares & the Artemis II eclipse: the second edition if my "Sunny Sci'd Up" newsletter is now live! I'd appreciate any feedback on this as I delve into Substack for the first time. open.substack.com/pub/ryanjfre...

Overnight, the Sun produced a SECOND major #SolarFlare (7 hours after the first), clocking in at a near-identical X2.5-class. For context, we experienced two of these events overnight, whilst 2025 only saw three flares total at/above this level.

Here’s a multi-wavelength view of tonight’s X2.5-class #SolarFlare. This is the strongest flare we’ve seen for 78 days.

The active region responsible for tonight's #SolarFlare has been popping off smaller flares and eruptions all day – before the big one (X2.5-class) tonight. I will post a movie of the recent flare as it becomes available!