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Magnestars are indeed very exotic objects! Scientific America has published a great article about magnetars if you want to read more: http://solomon.as.utexas.edu/~duncan/sciam.pdf  

A Japanese spacecraft Hinode (the name means "sunrise") has made impressive observations about possible Alfven waves in the solar corona. You can read the story and see some movies from http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMGUB29R9F_index_0.html#subhead3 

Hi Chris!Although some consequences of solar storms are easy to see at the Earth (mainly auroras at the northern latitudes) the solar eruptions themselves are not so easy to detect. I guess the first “solar storm” that was well documented occurred in September 1, 1859 when an English astronomer Richard Carrington noticed a great and sudden ...

Hi Aaron, Yes, the sun has a core! The core extends to about one fifth of the solar radius and it has higher density and temperature than other parts of the Sun.  The core is a very important region as the main energy of the Sun is generated there by nuclear fusion.   

Hi Stephanie,It is not an easy task to predict and measure the speed of a CME!  As a matter of fact, it is even very difficult to predict when a CME eruption will occur at the Sun. At the times of high solar activity CMEs tend to be faster than during solar minimum. Also CMEs that are associated with solar flares and active regions are ...

Hi John!The sunspots are caused by magnetic flux tubes that break through the surface of the Sun. The magnetic field in sunspots, which is few thousands Gauss, is much stronger than the Sun’s average field (only about one Gauss).   

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Hi Daniel!   In solar eclipse the moon passes between the Sun and the Earth covering partly or totally the bright solar disk. In the total eclipse, the Sun is completely obscured by the Moon. It is actually quite a coincidence that at the closest distance from the Earth at its orbit, the Moon has just the right size to cover the whole disk ...

Also a majority, more than 99 percent,  of the visible matter in the universe is in the plasma state! This might be difficult to believe since at the surface of the Earth we usually do not encounter the matter in the plasma state. But the universe is filled with plasma. For example, the Sun and the other stars are huge ...