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By NASA
Explore This Section Science Uncategorized Helio Highlights: May… Home Framework for Heliophysics Education About Helio Big Idea 1.1 Helio Big Idea 1.2 Helio Big Idea 1.3 Helio Big Idea 2.1 Helio Big Idea 2.2 Helio Big Idea 2.3 Helio Big Idea 3.1 Helio Big Idea 3.2 Helio Big Idea 3.3 Helio Missions Helio Topics Resource Database About NASA HEAT More Highlights Space Math 3 min read
Helio Highlights: May 2025
3 Min Read Helio Highlights: May 2025
A satellite image showing the extent of the Northern Lights during part of the Mother’s Day 2024 solar storms. Credits:
NOAA One year ago, solar storms lit up the night sky. Why?
The Sun is 93 million miles away from Earth, on average. Even though it’s far away, we can still see and feel its effects here. One of the most beautiful effects are the auroras – colorful lights that dance across the sky near the North and South Poles. These are also called the Northern and Southern Lights. They happen when tiny particles from the Sun hit gas molecules in our atmosphere and give off energy.
Sometimes the Sun becomes very active and sends out a lot more energy than normal. When this happens, we can see auroras in places much farther from the poles than normal. In May 2024, around Mother’s Day, the Sun sent powerful solar storms in the direction of Earth. These storms were also called the Gannon Storms, named after Jennifer Gannon, a scientist who studied space weather. The Northern Lights could be seen as far south as Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Mexico, Jamaica, and the Bahamas. The Southern Lights were also visible as far north as South Africa and New Zealand.
Aurora Borealis seen from British Columbia, Canada on May 10, 2024. NASA/Mara Johnson-Groh Scientists who study the Sun and its effects on our solar system work in a field called heliophysics. Their studies of the Sun have shown that it goes through cycles of being more active and less active. Each one of these cycles lasts about 11 years, but can be anywhere from 8 to 14 years long. This is called the Solar Cycle.
The middle of each cycle is called Solar Maximum. During this time, the Sun has more dark spots (called sunspots) and creates more space weather events. The big storms in May 2024 happened during the Solar Maximum for Solar Cycle 25.
On May 8 and 9, 2024, an active area on the Sun called AR3664 shot out powerful solar flares and several huge bursts of energy called coronal mass ejections (CMEs). These CMEs headed straight for Earth. The first CME pushed aside the normal solar wind, making a clear path for the others to reach us faster. When all this energy hit our atmosphere, it created auroras much farther from the poles than usual. It was like the Sun gave the auroras a huge power boost!
Eruptions of Solar material into space as seen on May 7 (right) and May 8 (left), 2024. These types of eruptions often come just before a larger Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), including the ones which caused the Mother’s Day solar storms. NASA/SDO Auroras are beautiful to watch, but the space weather that creates them can also cause problems. Space weather can mess up radio signals, power grids, GPS systems, and satellites. During the May 2024 storms, GPS systems used by farmers were disrupted. Many farmers use GPS to guide their self-driving tractors. Since this happened during peak planting season, it may have cost billions of dollars in lost profit.
Because space weather can cause so many problems, scientists at NASA and around the world watch the Sun closely to predict when these events will happen. You can help too! Join local science projects at schools, teach others about the Sun, and help make observations in your area. All of this helps us to learn more about the Sun and how it affects our planet.
Here are some resources to connect you to the Sun and auroras
Lesson Plans & Educator Guides
Magnetic Mysteries: Sun-Earth Interactions
A 5E lesson for high school students to investigate the question of what causes aurora by using Helioviewer to examine solar activity.
Aurora Research and Heliophysics
Learn about aurora, how they form, and the different phases they go through, as well as heliophysics missions that study them.
How Earth’s Magnetic Field Causes Auroras
A 5E middle school lesson where students explore why our planet has a magnetic field (and other planets don’t) and what it is like.
Interactive Resources
Magnetic Earth
Introductory activity where users learn about the magnetic field that surrounds Earth and its role in creating the Northern Lights.
NOAA Aurora
30-Minute Forecast
An interactive aurora map for both hemispheres which allows users to predict the likelihood of auroras at different latitudes.
Webinars and Slide Decks
Space Weather
Basics
A slide deck (41 slides) that offers an elementary introduction to the basic features of space weather and its interactions with Earth’s magnetosphere and various technologies.
View the full article
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By European Space Agency
Video: 00:03:30 Two meteorological missions – Meteosat Third Generation Sounder-1 (MTG-S1) and the Copernicus Sentinel-4 mission – have launched on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral in Florida, US.
Both are world-class Earth observation missions developed with European partners to address scientific and societal challenges.
The MTG-S1 satellite will generate a completely new type of data product, especially suited to nowcasting severe weather events, with three-dimensional views of the atmosphere. It is the second in the MTG constellation to be prepared for orbit and is equipped with the first European operational Infrared Sounder instrument.
Copernicus Sentinel-4 will be the first mission to monitor European air quality from geostationary orbit, providing hourly information that will transform how we predict air pollution across Europe, using its ultraviolet, visible, near-infrared light (UVN) spectrometer.
View the full article
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By European Space Agency
Video: 00:02:30 Two meteorological missions – Meteosat Third Generation Sounder-1 (MTG-S1) and the Copernicus Sentinel-4 mission – have launched on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral in Florida, US.
Both are world-class Earth observation missions developed with European partners to address scientific and societal challenges.
The MTG-S1 satellite will generate a completely new type of data product, especially suited to nowcasting severe weather events, with three-dimensional views of the atmosphere. It is the second in the MTG constellation to be prepared for orbit and is equipped with the first European operational Infrared Sounder instrument.
Copernicus Sentinel-4 will be the first mission to monitor European air quality from geostationary orbit, providing hourly information that will transform how we predict air pollution across Europe, using its ultraviolet, visible, near-infrared light (UVN) spectrometer.
View the full article
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By NASA
NASA astronaut Anil Menon poses for a portrait at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Credit: NASA/Josh Valcarcel NASA astronaut Anil Menon will embark on his first mission to the International Space Station, serving as a flight engineer and Expedition 75 crew member.
Menon will launch aboard the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft in June 2026, accompanied by Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina. After launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the trio will spend approximately eight months aboard the orbiting laboratory.
During his expedition, Menon will conduct scientific investigations and technology demonstrations to help prepare humans for future space missions and benefit humanity.
Selected as a NASA astronaut in 2021, Menon graduated with the 23rd astronaut class in 2024. After completing initial astronaut candidate training, he began preparing for his first space station flight assignment.
Menon was born and raised in Minneapolis and is an emergency medicine physician, mechanical engineer, and colonel in the United States Space Force. He holds a bachelor’s degree in neurobiology from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a master’s degree in mechanical engineering, and a medical degree from Stanford University in California. Menon completed his emergency medicine and aerospace medicine residency at Stanford and the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.
In his spare time, he still practices emergency medicine at Memorial Hermann’s Texas Medical Center and teaches residents at the University of Texas’ residency program. Menon served as SpaceX’s first flight surgeon, helping to launch the first crewed Dragon spacecraft on NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission and building SpaceX’s medical organization to support humans on future missions. He served as a crew flight surgeon for both SpaceX flights and NASA expeditions aboard the space station.
For nearly 25 years, people have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge and conducting critical research for the benefit of humanity and our home planet. Space station research supports the future of human spaceflight as NASA looks toward deep space missions to the Moon under the Artemis campaign and in preparation for future human missions to Mars, as well as expanding commercial opportunities in low Earth orbit and beyond.
Learn more about International Space Station at:
https://www.nasa.gov/station
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Joshua Finch / Jimi Russell
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / james.j.russell@nasa.gov
Shaneequa Vereen
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
shaneequa.y.vereen@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Jul 01, 2025 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
Astronauts Humans in Space International Space Station (ISS) ISS Research View the full article
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