30 Mar 2026

Solar flares are powerful bursts of energy. Flares and solar eruptions can impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals, and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts.

The recently observed flaring activity is not currently anticipated to impact the Artemis II mission. NASA is continuing to monitor space weather activity as the agency prepares for the launch.

This flare is classified as an X1.4 flare. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength.

To see how such space weather may affect Earth, please visit NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center https://spaceweather.gov/, the U.S. government’s official source for space weather forecasts, watches, warnings, and alerts. NASA works as a research arm of the nation’s space weather effort. NASA observes the Sun and our space environment constantly with a fleet of spacecraft that study everything from the Sun’s activity to the solar atmosphere, and to the particles and magnetic fields in the space surrounding Earth.

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NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare — seen as the bright flash toward the bottom left — on March 29, 2026. The image shows a subset of extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the extremely hot material in flares and which is colorized in gold.