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Elsayed Talaat

Director, Office of Space Weather Observations at NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service

Appears in 1 story

Stories

Severe solar storm hits Earth at solar maximum

Force in Play

Leading federal space weather monitoring efforts

On January 18, 2026, the Sun fired the most intense radiation storm in over 20 years directly at Earth. An X1.9-class flare launched a coronal mass ejection traveling at 1,700 kilometers per second—plasma moving fast enough to cross the Sun-Earth distance in just 25 hours.

Updated May 27