Technologies

NASA captures violent flash from sun’s mini eruption

Check out this beautiful image of our very own star’s minor tantrum.

On Thursday, our sun released its pent-up energy in the form of a little magnetic bomb. It’s called a solar flare, and NASA caught the whole thing on camera.

Solar flares, which are sudden explosions on the sun’s surface caused by strong magnetic forces, are of concern to astronomers because these events can impact electrical power grids on Earth, causing regional blackouts. They also risk interference with radio communications.

«This event, in particular, disrupted radio communications over the Indian and Pacific oceans — so its likely biggest impact was a disruption of maritime communications,» said Jesse Woodroffe, a program scientist and expert in space weather at NASA.

Even more jarring is if astronauts are in the flares’ line of fire, such detonations may greatly threaten space traveler and spacecraft safety. The good news, though, is NASA categorized the recent flare as a category M5.5 midlevel eruption, which corresponds to both a moderate severity and radio blackout threat for the side of the planet facing the burst.

«It’s not exceptionally strong in the grand scheme of things,» Woodroffe said, «but it nevertheless can have significant effects depending on what portion of the Earth is sunlit at the time of the flare.»

For now we can just sit back and admire the spectacular image captured by the agency in «extreme ultraviolet light,» colorized in an absolutely mesmerizing teal blue.

Around 300 M-class flares occur during each solar cycle, and they’re most likely to occur near solar maximum, a point we’re steadily approaching, according to Woodroffe. «Right now this is shaping up to be a much more active and interesting solar cycle than the last one. That means that we could be in store for solar activity the likes of which we haven’t seen in nearly 20 years.»

What causes a solar flare?

Instead of a glowing orb, think of the sun as a giant, flaming, spherical ocean. This ocean is so ridiculously hot, at 5,778 Kelvin (9940.73 Fahrenheit), that would-be atoms on the star are completely blasted apart into a gaseous mixture of ions and electrons called a plasma.

These particles, with varying positive and negative charges, work together to form the sun’s magnetic field lines, thereby deciding how the boiling ocean moves around. Think of it as a sort of immensely strong, magnetic soup — more precisely, picture a chicken noodle soup. The noodles are the sun’s magnetic fields.

However, just as stirring your soup in search of a baby carrot can tangle your noodles, these charged-up, magnetic lines can grow tangled, most often near sunspots. Eventually, as regions of the spaghetti-like magnetic fields form complex knots and push and pull on each other, they experience an energy overload.

That forces them to explode into space, revealing a fiery loop on the side of our enormous star, called a solar flare.

«There is also a potential for solar flares to cluster, meaning the occurrence of one could presage the appearance of more, potentially stronger flares,» Woodroffe said. «Thus, monitoring for events such as this is important because it could be the precursor of something more serious.»

And sometimes, the fiery loop stretches out until it becomes taut enough to sort of snap off, resulting in a coronal mass ejection. «A coronal mass ejection is, in essence, a little bit of the sun that gets blown off and sent flying into space towards Earth,» Woodroffe said.

Once it snaps off, the ejected portion heads directly toward our planet, picking up space-borne particles along the way and causing what’s called a solar storm. Thankfully, Earth’s atmosphere protects us from the brunt of the charged particles, with only relatively few getting caught in our planet’s shield. When that happens, though, we look up at these trapped, zippy particles in awe.

They appear to us as the Northern Lights.

«I don’t know if there was a coronal mass ejection associated with this flare, but we are expecting the possible arrival of a coronal mass ejection associated with a flare that occurred on Jan. 18,» Woodroffe said. «So, even if it’s not because of this flare, we could very well see some nice auroras this weekend.»

Technologies

iOS Gets More AI as Chrome Adds Google’s Gemini for iPhones

iPad users also won’t need to go elsewhere for their AI needs.

Google is adding its artificial intelligence tool Gemini to the Chrome browser on iPhones and iPads across the US, meaning you’ll be able to use Google’s AI functionality in Chrome instead of having to go to the Google app on your devices.

The integration comes a few months after Google rolled out Gemini in Chrome to Windows and Mac desktop users in the US in September. At the time, the company said that it would eventually be doing the same thing with iPhones and iPads.

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Before now, if you wanted to use Gemini on your iPhone and iPad, you were not able to do so from Chrome — you would have had to go to the Google app or Google website.

Folks using Android phones already have Gemini on their Chrome browsers, which is the default browser on Android devices.

Chrome is the most widely used web browser in the US; StatCounter said that as of November, Chrome had a 54% market share of browsers in the US, followed by Apple’s Safari (28%) and Microsoft Edge (7%). There are other smaller browsers that people use to search the internet, including Firefox, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi and Arc.

Gemini is Google’s family of AI products and competes with ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Anthropic’s Claude, Perplexity AI, Mistral AI, Meta AI and Grok in the realm of chatbots, content creation and AI integration.

‘Gap’ has been filled

Jason Howell, host of the Android Faithful Podcast and a former CNET staffer, said Google has filled «a noticeable gap» in AI for Chrome for the millions of iPhone and iPad users in the US.

«Giving Gemini awareness of what’s happening inside the Chrome browser has real utility, and placing that spark icon front and center will nudge a lot of people to try it who might not have otherwise,» Howell said. «It’s a smart distribution play. Put your AI in an app that millions already have installed, and you’re giving them an enticing reason to test it.»

Howell said adding Gemini into Chrome for iOS could give Google the edge on, well, Edge.

«Microsoft already brings Copilot to iOS through its dedicated apps and even inside the Edge browser, so this isn’t Google pulling ahead so much as it is Google catching up in an important and highly visible place,» Howell said. «Having said that, Chrome has a much larger footprint on iOS compared to Edge, so it’s using its scale to put Gemini in front of far more iPhone and iPad users, which could meaningfully shift adoption among third-party AI assistants.»

What can you do with Gemini?

Gemini in Chrome is not immediately available to everyone using iOS devices, but it is gradually rolling out across the US. To be able to get it, you need to be running Chrome version 143, sign into your account and make sure the browser language is set to English; you also cannot be in Incognito mode.

Chrome users in iOS will know they have Gemini when the Google Lens icon (which looks like a camera with a dot in the middle) to the left of the address bar is replaced by the Gemini icon (which looks like a sparkle).

When you tap or press the Gemini icon, two options will appear on a «Page tools» screen that slides up: Search screen and Ask Gemini. Two shortcuts that will appear are Summarize page and Create FAQ about this topic.

Let’s say your web page is about the top news events of 2025. You could ask Gemini, «Give me a list of the top events for each month,» or, «List out the top political news of 2025.» Maybe you’re looking at a great meal to prepare but you need substitutes for certain ingredients — you could ask Gemini to provide suggestions. Just remember to double-check everything an AI tool tells you because AIs have been known to hallucinate.

Gemini for Chrome in iOS will also make checkout easier with biometrics instead of a CVC code during online shopping.

Technologies

Strike a Pose: Here’s How to Use Google’s Upgraded Virtual Try-On Feature

The refined Google shopping feature now works without a full-body photo. Instead, it generates one virtually.

Say goodbye to awkward dressing-room selfies. Google is upgrading its existing AI-powered try-on tool, which allows you to skip an in-person shopping trip and view yourself in clothes virtually with the help of AI.

The update, announced on Thursday, adds the option to generate a complete digital version of yourself, rather than providing a full-body photo. So, if you have a great selfie but happen to be sitting down in the image or it’s a head-and-shoulders-only photo, you can now use it. The tool will ask what size body you want it to create, from XS to 4XL+, and create a full-body avatar with your image. So, even if you don’t have a need to wear a full-length, formal satin gown or black leather pants, you can see how you might look if you did.

You must be in the US, so if you are, upload a selfie to the website and select a size, and Nano Banana — Google’s Gemini 2.5 Flash Image model — will generate a full-length image, allowing you to click around and try out outfits.

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Google initially introduced its AI try-on feature in May at its I/O developers conference. You’ll still be able to virtually try on clothes using a full-body photo if you prefer.

Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for Dec. 12, #1637

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle for Dec. 12, No. 1,637.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Wordle puzzle came fairly easy to me. It’s a common word, and the letters are ones I guess right away. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.