Hi,

The Sun is the closest star to all the planets in our solar system - that is what makes it a "solar" system ("solar" means connected to the Sun), so Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune and also dwarf planets like Ceres in the astroid belt and Pluto and Eris farther out.

Solar flares are happening every day, especially at this point in the Sun's 11 year activity cycle - we are pretty close to solar maximum. Most of them are not too large (as solar flares go). These ones happening so far today are just "C" flares. The next level up are "M" flares. One of them happened last Thursday, March 20.

Terry