A study submitted May 8, 2026, to arXiv.org revealed that changes in solar plasma near the sun’s surface began three hours before an X-class solar flare on October 3, 2024, suggesting a potential window for predicting such powerful eruptions. The research analyzed space-based observations of an active region on the sun that produced the flare.
Solar physicist Louis Seyfritz of the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark and colleagues examined data from NASA’s Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph space telescope, which was trained on a single point in the active region on October 3, 2024. The telescope tracked light emitted by the silicon IV ion, which traces plasma in the transition region between the sun’s surface and corona. Researchers analyzed features of this light to probe the plasma’s temperature, turbulence, and movement toward or away from the sun’s surface.
All three parameters—temperature, turbulence, and plasma movement away from the sun—gradually increased beginning three hours before the flare. About 20 minutes before the eruption, these values jumped sharply. Over the three-hour period, the parameters varied periodically, showing consistent oscillations every 8 and 20 minutes. In the final hour before the flare, tracers of temperature and turbulence changed in sync.
“That’s always kind of the goal when we talk about pre-flaring. If we can predict when a huge solar flare is going to happen, that means we can protect [astronauts] from any harmful radiation,” Seyfritz said.
Solar physicist Emily Mason of Predictive Science Inc. in San Diego questioned what ultimately triggers such destabilization. “One of the biggest questions about flares is what triggers them. In nature, most systems like to remain stable, so what makes the magnetic field on the sun destabilize to the point that runaway energy release is the next step?” she asked. Mason noted that shorter wavelengths showed an 8-minute oscillation period, while longer wavelengths showed a 15-minute period.
She added, “I am confident that the oscillations reported here have the ability to predict major flares, but we would need a mission that could observe the whole sun at once (and probably be able to conduct the analysis onboard) in order to be useful in a predictive capacity. The technology exists. It’s a matter of funding.” The same solar active region had already emitted a strong flare a few days before the October 3, 2024, X-class event.