Late on Oct. 21, 2025, a spectacular coronal mass ejection (CME) erupted from the far side of the sun, an area currently dominated by the powerful and persistent Active Region 4246. The eruption occurred just after the active region had rotated beyond the sun's western limb, out of direct view from Earth and the weather satellites that monitor solar activity.

What is it?

CMEs are among the most awe-inspiring explosions in the solar system. These vast eruptions hurl immense clouds of magnetized plasma from the sun's corona into interplanetary space, sometimes at millions of miles per hour.

Yet many of these powerful outbursts occur where we can't see them directly, on the far side of the sun, hidden from Earth's telescopes. These events still shape the solar wind environment that later sweeps past our planet or impacts other worlds, such as Venus and Mars.

That's where the Compact Coronagraph (CCOR-1) instrument aboard NOAA's GOES-19 weather satellite comes in. CCOR-1 blocks the sun's bright disk to capture faint white-light structures in the outer corona, tracking CMEs as they expand into space.

Where is it?

The CCOR-1 on NOAA's GOES-19 satellite orbits around 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers) above Earth's equator.

Why is it amazing?

When aimed toward Earth, these sorts of eruptions can set off brilliant auroras, disrupt satellites and disturb power systems. Although no direct effects were felt on Earth with this particular CME, the event showed how powerful our sun can truly be.

CCOR-1's imagery offered a glimpse of "the storm we missed," one that, if rotated just a few days earlier, could have driven a major geomagnetic disturbance.

Want to learn more?

You can learn more about the solar cycle and weather satellites.

On Sept. 23, a spacecraft will launch with a clear mission — to keep a constant watch on the sun to help protect Earth from space weather. The satellite, Space Weather Follow-On L1 (SWFO-L1), is launching just in time, as scientists warn our aging fleet of solar sentinels is reaching the end of its life.

"It's extremely urgent. These satellites, ACE, SOHO, DSCOVR, are all working beyond their design life," Richard Ullman, deputy director, NOAA Office of Space Weather Observations, said during a media press briefing on Aug. 21. "The need is urgent, and we must replace this capability now."

For decades, Earth has relied on a handful of satellites parked a million miles away, including NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE), launched in 1997, and NOAA's Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), launched in 2015, to provide the first warning when potentially disruptive space weather is headed our way. But many of those spacecraft are operating well past their prime.

Why watching the sun matters

Solar storms do more than spark stunning auroras. When the sun launches eruptions of charged particles, they race across space and slam into Earth's magnetic field. These events, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), can disturb GPS signals, threaten astronauts, damage satellites and in extreme cases, even knock out power grids on the ground.

The only reason operators have time to prepare is thanks to spacecraft stationed at a sweet spot called Lagrange Point 1, or L1. From that lookout point, about 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) between Earth and the sun, satellites get a front-row seat to the complex space weather environment, including the solar wind. By measuring the solar wind speed, density and magnetic orientation, these satellites can give Earth anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour of warning before the storm arrives.

"These warnings are the first line of defense against the potentially devastating effects of space weather," Irene Parker, performing the duties of the assistant administrator, NOAA Satellites, said during the media briefing.

A fleet in crisis

Until now, the job of keeping a watchful eye on the sun has mostly fallen to a handful of older missions. NASA's ACE spacecraft has been working for nearly three decades, far beyond its intended five-year lifespan. The joint NASA-NOAA DSCOVR mission, launched in 2015 and intended to take over from ACE, has struggled with reliability. As of July 2025, it is offline following a software anomaly. There is currently "no timeline for restoration of data flow," NOAA told Space.com in an email. For now, NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) is again relying on NASA's ACE spacecraft as its primary source of solar wind data, alongside imagery from ESA/NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and NOAA's GOES-19 satellite, which carries the agency's first operational compact coronagraph, according to NOAA.

"DSCOVR's been, sadly, a bit of a disappointment," Space weather physicist Tamitha Skov told Space.com in an interview. "We were supposed to be able to retire ACE."

Even SOHO, launched in 1995 as a research mission, is still providing useful solar imagery and data long after its intended retirement in 1998.

The current reliance on a nearly 30-year-old spacecraft highlights just how fragile our space weather monitoring network has become. If any of these missions were to fail without replacement, the consequences could be severe.

"We're hanging on by a thread, literally, both funding-wise and getting new observations out there," Skov told Space.com. "We are all used to single-point failures. And so does it frustrate or scare us? Not anymore, it just is the state of things."

Enter SWFO-L1

NOAA's new mission is designed to shore up this fragile system, ensuring that if ACE finally fails or DSCOVR cannot be recovered, real-time solar wind monitoring will continue uninterrupted. Once it arrives at L1, SWFO-L1 will measure the solar wind, magnetic fields, and high-energy particles streaming from the sun. These measurements will flow in real time to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado, where forecasters issue alerts and warnings to everyone from airlines to power grid operators.

"It can't stop an incoming threat, but it can give us time to prepare," Parker said. "SWFO-L1 will give our forecasters at NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center the advanced tools they need to protect our country's critical systems."

What makes SWFO-L1 different is its focus. While spacecraft like NASA's Parker Solar Probe or ESA's Solar Orbiter are revolutionizing our understanding of solar physics, SWFO is dedicated to operations. It is not about scientific discovery as much as it is about reliability: making sure there is always an eye on the sun, feeding data into space weather models.

"We at the Space Weather Prediction Center are extremely eager for SWFO-L1 spacecraft to not only launch but get in position and start receiving solar wind observations into our operations," said Shawn Dahl, forecaster, Space Weather Prediction Center, NOAA's National Weather Service. "This is a giant leap forward to our forecast of decision support services that we provide right here at the Space Weather Prediction Center."

For the scientists who have been pushing for new investments in space weather monitoring, Sept. 23 marks the start of a new chapter.

"This launch is not just about a new satellite, it's about building a more resilient future, ensuring that technologies we depend on are protected from the sun's most extreme events," Parker said.

And for the rest of us, whether we rely on GPS navigation, satellites for communication, or just want to enjoy the auroras, it means the sun will stay firmly in sight.

In early September 2025, skywatchers in parts of the Eastern Hemisphere were treated to a total lunar eclipse as Earth blocked the sun's light from the moon. The eclipse occurred in the evening of Sept. 7 as the moon slipped into shadow and transformed into the infamous "blood moon" for a few minutes.

Interestingly, satellites orbiting Earth saw something very, very different.

What is it?

Two of the weather satellites launched by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) — Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) 18 and 19 (also known as GOES West and GOES East) — witnessed not one but two eclipses the evening of Sept. 7.

These two satellites are part of NOAA's larger mission to monitor Earth and space weather and study changes in Earth's environment in high resolution. But while their eyes look Earthward, their gaze recently caught both a solar and lunar eclipse.

Where is it?

According to NOAA, the GOES-18 satellite is positioned above the "western contiguous United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Mexico, Central America and the Pacific Ocean," while the GOES-19 satellite is located to scan a wider swath of Earth, including "North America, including the continental United States and Mexico, as well as Central and South America, the Caribbean and the Atlantic Ocean to the west coast of Africa."

Why is it amazing?

While skywatchers on Earth saw a lunar eclipse, due to their positioning in space, both GOES satellites were treated to a solar eclipse and then the lunar eclipse, mere hours apart.

A solar eclipse happens when the moon blocks the view of the sun on Earth while, in contrast, Earth blocks the sun's light on the moon for a lunar eclipse.

Given their locations above our planet, both GOES-18 and GOES-19 caught stunning details of the sun in high resolution before they were momentarily blocked by the moon in a solar eclipse. This eclipse happened from 4:40 a.m. to 5:28 a.m. EDT (0840 to 0928 GMT) for GOES-18, and 12:34 am to 1:22 a.m. EDT ( 0434 to 0522 GMT) for GOES-19. Videos of this solar eclipse can be seen on the CIMSS Satellite Blog.

Hours later, the lunar eclipse happened at 1:30 p.m. EDT (1730 GMT) in the Eastern Hemisphere. Witnessing two eclipses in a single day is a rare celestial coincidence, a reminder that the universe still has a few breathtaking surprises up its sleeve.

Want to learn more?

You can read more about the GOES satellites and recent lunar eclipse.

Two wildfires in Northern Arizona, sparked from lightning, have burned at least 60,000 acres in a little over a week — and, while firefighters work around the clock trying to contain the fires, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s satellites are aiding the fight from space. The fires have also spread to the Grand Canyon.

The first wildfire to directly impact Grand Canyon National Park was the Dragon Bravo Fire, which began on July 4. Dragon Bravo has already scorched thousands of acres and continues to destroy a number of structures, including the monumental Grand Canyon Lodge, along its path within the park’s North Rim. Five days after the Dragon Bravo Fire began, another thunderstorm resulted in the creation of the White Sage Fire, which rapidly grew and expanded during a period of dry and hot weather accompanied by powerful wind gusts.

In order to fight the fires from all angles, firefighters, weather forecasters and community leaders depend on information gathered in space from satellites. Some satellites are equipped with instruments that can monitor a wildfire's progression and growth, as well as provide high-resolution photos of both the fire itself and the associated smoke plume. There are two satellite constellations from NOAA that particularly tag-team with wildfire updates: the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). Together, the satellites can paint a picture using tools they're equipped with, with JPSS tracking the United States in a non-geosynchronous orbit while 512 miles (824 kilometers) above us and GOES orbiting around the Earth at the same speed in a geosynchronous orbit while 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) above.

So, how do satellites gather information that's crucial in the fight to contain a wildfire?

There are different filters and spectral bands that can be used to get that information., and tools on the satellites are able to analyze just those two things. These tools capture high-resolution images of the growth and expansion of a wildfire in almost real-time. They can also show, via time-lapse, the direction that fire and smoke are moving. If we look at the time-lapse of images taken by the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) aboard NOAA's GOES-18 satellite, you can see where the fire originated, its rapid growth and expansion, and how the direction of the wind steered the flames over time (in this view, the winds were blowing from the north/northwest).

Another instrument that regularly provides important information about wildfires lives on NOAA's JPSS satellites, NOAA-20 and NOAA-21. Even after the sun goes to sleep, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) can continue to snap photos of the wildfire. These details keep first responders and community leaders aware of the fire's behavior — and alert them if any growth, new hot spots, or updates critical with fighting the wildfire can be seen. These monitoring tools thus remain of extreme importance, continuously providing information to help us understand a wildfire with a level of accuracy and precision that ground reports alone cannot offer.

You can find more information on both the Dragon Bravo and White Sage fires through the InciWeb site and any closure details from Grand Canyon National Park are located here.

Foul weather could make Thanksgiving travel rough for a lot of folks, a new satellite photo shows.

The visible-light image, which was captured this morning (Nov. 22) by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's GOES-East satellite, shows storm systems swirling around both the East and West coasts of the United States.

"In the northeastern U.S., clouds associated with a cold front were covering the New England states in the image," NASA officials wrote in a description of the photo. (NASA is a key partner on the GOES program, whose name is short for "Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites.")

"Clouds associated with a system in the Pacific Northwest were seen over Washington State, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Colorado," the officials added. "Pre-Thanksgiving travelers in the northern Plains and Upper Great Lakes will experience arctic air that is expected to bring periods of snow, blustery winds and cold wind chills."

For up-to-date- weather information, check out the National Weather Service's website. Safe travels, and happy Thanksgiving!

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.

Say hello to the Joint Polar Satellite System 1 (JPSS-1), a new satellite that does everything from providing seven-day weather forecasts to average citizens to helping NASA scientists study long-term changes to Earth's environment. 

JPSS-1 is the first in a series of upgraded weather satellites operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in partnership with NASA. The five scientific instruments aboard the JPSS-1 can provide information about Earth's atmosphere, oceans and land. The instruments measure temperature, moisture, rainfall, snow and ice cover, vegetation cover, and ozone levels, providing images that can be used to track things like fires, volcanic eruptions, floods and droughts. 

The $1.6 billion satellite mission is scheduled to launch tomorrow (Nov. 14) on a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, with liftoff set for 4:47 a.m. EST (1:47 a.m. PST/0947 GMT). Once it reaches orbit, the satellite will be renamed NOAA-20. You can watch the launch live here beginning at 4:15 a.m. EST (0915 GMT), courtesy of NASA TV. [Satellite Quiz: Do You Know What's Up There?]

At a news conference yesterday (Nov. 12), a group of experts said that JPSS-1 will continue the work done by other NOAA satellites, but with improved sensitivity in some of its instruments and an upgraded ground system that allows more data to be transferred from the satellite to the Earth. 

Weather watchers

At an altitude of about 512 miles (824 kilometers) above sea level, JPSS-1 will loop around the Earth in a polar orbit, going from North Pole to South Pole multiple times per day, as the planet rotates underneath the spacecraft. This allows the satellite to collect data from every point on the globe, which is especially important for providing those long-range, seven-day weather forecasts, according to Mitch Goldberg, NOAA's chief program scientist for JPSS.  

Extreme weather events tend to originate very far away from where they materialize, he said. So, for example, a "disturbance off the coast of Africa" may cause a hurricane off the coast of Florida, or a "typhoon off the coast of Japan … will feed atmospheric moisture plumes from one side of the planet to the other side of the planet." Thus, anticipating the hurricane requires global observations of things like temperature, precipitation and cloud formation. 

Researchers will primarily use two of the instruments aboard JPSS-1 for weather forecasts: the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS), which primarily provides large-scale measurements of temperature, moisture levels, precipitation and cloud cover across the globe, and the Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS), which will provide more-detailed measurements of temperature and moisture. The CrIS instrument has six times the accuracy of a similar instrument on NOAA's previous generation of weather satellites, Goldberg said. 

JPSS-1 will also provide visible and infrared images of Earth's surface with the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). VIIRS can show scientists the location of a hurricane's eye (it's center) with an accuracy of about 20 meters (66 feet), which is important because hurricane-prediction models rely heavily on that piece of information, said Joe Pica, director of NOAA’s National Weather Service Office of Observations, who also spoke at the news conference. 

JPSS is the first in a series of next-generation satellites that will work as part of NOAA's current suite of weather-tracking satellites. The use of multiple satellites with different instruments on board and with different orbits around the planet provides a wider range of information for scientists to draw on. For example, NOAA scientists can anticipate extreme weather events with polar-orbiting satellites like JPSS-1, but researchers can then monitor extreme weather events uninterrupted with geostationary satellites, like the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite 16, or GOES-16, Goldberg said. (Geostationary satellites remain above the same portion of the planet at all times.) 

"[Geostationary satellites] are always overhead, always observing weather in real time," Goldberg said. "[They] provide us with information as weather unfolds, while … polar satellites provide the critical data in order [for us] to forecast extreme weather events out to seven days."

Watching for wildfires

At the news conference, Jana Luis, division chief of predictive services for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, discussed how images from VIIRS, as well as JPSS's contributions to weather forecasting, directly impact efforts to fight forest fires. 

"We base almost all of our decisions … on weather," Luis said. "So, having current and accurate weather [forecasts] is huge to us."

Luis said her department relies on daily weather reports to anticipate how likely it is that fires will break out and how fast they will spread. Weather and environmental conditions help the department anticipate how long "fire season" will last for a given year; generally, the season goes from May to October, but with drought plaguing many parts of California for the past four to five years, the season has lasted the entire calendar year in some areas, she said. 

On Oct. 8, 2017, Luis' department was alerted to weather conditions — including very strong winds — that would occur across much of Northern California, which could cause fires to start and spread. Sure enough, on Oct. 9 and 10, more than 15 fires broke out across the state. But the early warning, based on satellite data, meant the department was ready to respond.  

"We were able to put out four incident-management teams by morning based on this information and our preparedness," Luis said. "Once the fires start, the [satellite] information keeps coming in, and it allows our incident meteorologist as well as our fire-behavior people to show us where the fire growth may be and the intensity of [the fires]. So, we're constantly getting this data, using this data and making very important decisions for our department as well as the public."  

Weather forecasts, combined with visual images of where existing fires are located, help fire departments decide what information to provide to members of the public, whether it's simply a warning to clean up dry leaves and dry grass from around homes or instructions to pack a bag and be ready for evacuation orders, Luis said. JPSS-1 will continue to assist in the observation of wildfires and other extreme events, including floods and droughts, the speakers said.

Asking big questions

NASA and NOAA have collaborated on Earth-observing missions since the 1970s, according to James Gleason, NASA senior project scientist for JPSS, who spoke at the news conference. Together, the two agencies have attempted to answer the question, "Can we observe and then quantify how the global Earth system is changing?" according to Gleason. 

"That's a big question, but we can sort of now break that down into smaller questions," he said. For example, NOAA and NASA satellites have been observing the ozone layer since the 1970s and have monitored the condition of hole in the ozone over Antarctica. That monitoring effort will continue with JPSS-1, which carries an instrument called the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS). 

With the help of JPSS-1, NASA scientists will also continue to study the global vegetation growth cycles, or when green vegetation appears and disappears with the seasons, both on land and in the sea. Decades of monitoring have shown that the length of the growing cycle has increased (perhaps due to rising global temperatures), Gleason said.

Finally, scientists are also monitoring the Earth's radiation budget, or how much heat the planet releases and how much solar heat it absorbs. Once again, decades of observation have revealed a pattern: The planet absorbs slightly more heat than it releases and that most of that heat is absorbed into the oceans, Gleason said. The Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) on JPSS-1 will provided new data on the planet's energy budget. 

Follow Calla Cofield @callacofield. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.