... A Dark and Stormy Night . ... But on August 29th the red planet Mars, near it's closest approach to Earth in almost 60,000 years, shone brightly in the sky against a background of stars in the constellation Aquarius. ... A Powerful Solar Flare . ... Yesterday, our Sun produced one of the most powerful solar flares in recorded history. ... Awash in a sea of plasma and anchored in magnetic fields, sunspots are planet-sized, dark islands in the solar photosphere, the bright surface of the Sun. ...