Science news this week: Powerful solar storms, exploding comets and pigs from hell

The stars of the show in this week’s science news were actually the stars themselves. It was a truly brilliant week for updates and discoveries related to these celestial furnaces.

Starting close to home, the sun spit out three consecutive solar outbursts toward Earth, causing this month’s second launch attempt of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket to be scrubbed and bringing auroras as far south as Florida. Luckily, our planet’s protective magnetosphere sheltered us from any harmful effects, but severe geomagnetic storms could be more damaging in the future, owing to a newly discovered weak spot in Earth’s invisible shield.