Tag Archive for 'Coronal mass ejection'

The first visible-light image of green aurora on Mars (left), taken by the Mastcam-Z instrument on NASA’s Perseverance rover. On the right is a comparison image of the night sky of Mars without aurora but featuring the Martian moon Deimos. The moonlit Martian night sky, lit up mostly by Mars’ nearer and larger moon Phobos (outside the frame) has a reddish-brown hue due to the dust in the atmosphere, so when green auroral light is added, the sky takes on a green-yellow tone, as seen in the left image. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU / MSSS / SSI.

Perseverance Detects Visible-Wavelength Aurora on Mars

May 19, 2025 by News Staff

Mars hosts various auroral processes despite the planet’s tenuous atmosphere and lack of a global magnetic field. To date, all aurora observations have...

Space weather from the Sun, such as coronal mass ejections, disturbs Earth’s magnetic field, causing the aurorae and potentially decreasing the magnetic field’s reliability for migrating birds. Image credit: John Megahan.

Severe Space Weather Events Disrupt Nocturnal Bird Migrations, Researchers Find

Oct 11, 2023 by News Staff

Earth’s magnetic field is occasionally but regularly impacted by bursts of energy from the Sun (space weather), such as coronal mass ejections. Birds...

An artist’s impression of the superflare from the main member of the V1355 Orionis binary system. Image credit: NAOJ.

Astronomers Detect Superflare from V1355 Orionis

Apr 28, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

V1355 Orionis (also known as HD 291095) is an RS CVn-type binary star system located 400 light-years away in the constellation of Orion. An artist’s...

Sketch of the relative positions of NASA’s and ESA’s spacecraft that observed the February 12, 2021 coronal mass ejections; ESA’s Solar Orbiter spacecraft was ‘behind’ the Sun from the perspective of Earth; the Earth was about 12 degrees west of Sun-center as seen from Solar Orbiter; ESA’s Proba-2, which orbits the Earth, and the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), which is located in orbit around the Lagrange point 1, 1.5 million km in front of the Earth towards the Sun, also viewed the coronal mass ejection; NASA’s STEREO-A (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) also caught a glimpse of the event from its viewpoint away from the direct Sun-Earth line; together the spacecraft provide valuable, different perspectives on the same event. Image credit: ESA.

Solar Orbiter Observes Two Huge Eruptions on Sun

May 18, 2021 by News Staff

The Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI), the Heliospheric Imager (SoloHI) and the Metis coronagraph onboard the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter captured different...

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe approaching the Sun. Image credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Observes ‘Solar Energetic Particle’ Events

Feb 4, 2020 by News Staff

New observations from NASA’s Parker Solar Probe show how Sun’s plasma that is released after a solar flare can accelerate and pile up solar energetic...

This artist’s illustration depicts a coronal mass ejection, which involves a large-scale expulsion of material, and have frequently been observed on our Sun. Image credit: NNASA / CXC / INAF / Argiroffi et al / S. Wiessinger.

Chandra Detects Huge Coronal Mass Ejection from HR 9024

Jun 6, 2019 by News Staff

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs), often associated with solar flares, are the most powerful magnetic phenomena occurring on the Sun. Now, astronomers using...

This illustration shows a red dwarf star orbited by a hypothetical exoplanet. Red dwarfs tend to be magnetically active, displaying gigantic arcing prominences and a wealth of dark sunspots. Red dwarfs also erupt with intense flares that could strip a nearby planet’s atmosphere over time, or make the surface inhospitable to life as we know it. Image credit: NASA / ESA / STScI / G. Bacon.

Intense X-Rays Could Sterilize Potentially Habitable Exoplanets

Apr 5, 2018 by News Staff

Intense radiation from host stars could strip away the ozone layer of Earth-like exoplanets and render them uninhabitable, according to a new study presented...

On August 31, 2012, a long filament of solar material that had been hovering in the Sun’s atmosphere, the corona, erupted out into space at 4:36 p.m. EDT. The CME traveled at over 900 miles per second. It did not travel directly toward Earth, but did connect with Earth’s magnetic environment, or magnetosphere, with a glancing blow, causing aurora to appear on the night of September 3. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Researchers Recreate Solar Eruption in 3D

Mar 9, 2018 by News Staff

Using data from the NASA/ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and NASA’s twin Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) satellites, solar...

The solar eclipse petroglyph in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. Image credit: J. McKim Malville, University of Colorado.

Strange Petroglyph in Chaco Canyon May Represent Ancient Total Solar Eclipse

Aug 10, 2017 by News Staff

A petroglyph on the south face of Piedra del Sol, a free-standing rock in New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon, may depict the solar corona observed during the...

Artist’s conception of an exoplanet’s atmosphere being stripped by the radiation from its parent star. Image credit: Mark A. Garlick / University of Warwick.

Atmosphere Stripping May Limit Habitability of Extrasolar Planets

Jul 2, 2017 by News Staff

Huge coronal mass ejections (CMEs) on the Sun produce extreme space weather effects at Earth. Models of solar CMEs have now been applied to M-dwarf and...

Artist’s concept of the active young Sun 4 billion years ago. Its energy may have aided in creating molecules in the atmosphere of early Earth that allowed it to warm up enough to incubate life. Image credit: NASA / GSFC / CIL.

Young Sun’s Superflares May Have Been Key to Life on Early Earth

May 25, 2016 by News Staff

Powerful coronal mass ejection events from the young Sun may have provided the crucial energy needed to warm early Earth, according to a team of researchers...

This artistic rendering depicts an Earth-like exoplanet orbiting an evolved star that has formed a stunning planetary nebula; earlier in its life, this planet may have been like one of the eight newly discovered worlds orbiting in the habitable zones of their stars. Image credit: David A. Aguilar / CfA.

Kepler-438b: Red Dwarf May Have Stripped Away Atmosphere of Earth-Like Exoplanet

Nov 18, 2015 by Sergio Prostak

The atmosphere of Kepler-438b is thought to have been stripped away as a result of radiation emitted from the planet’s violent parent star, says a team...

Map of MAVEN’s auroral detections in December 2014 overlaid on the surface of Mars: the map shows that the aurora was widespread in the northern hemisphere, not tied to any geographic location. Image credit: University of Colorado.

MAVEN Sheds New Light on Atmosphere of Mars

Jun 24, 2015 by News Staff

NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) spacecraft has observed three phenomena in the atmosphere of Mars: a polar plume of escaping atmospheric...

The X2.2-class flare, March 11, 2015. Image credit: SDO / NASA.

New Tool Could Predict Earth-Directed Coronal Mass Ejections Day in Advance

Jun 11, 2015 by News Staff

A new measurement and modeling tool could give more than 24 hours’ notice of coronal mass ejections that could be harmful to systems on Earth. New tool...

A long solar filament erupted on the Sun on April 28-29, 2015. Image credit: ESA / NASA / SOHO.

NASA’s SOHO Sees Huge Filament Erupt on Sun

May 5, 2015 by News Staff

On April 28-29, 2015 a massive filament of solar material that had been hovering in the Sun’s atmosphere erupted into space in a large burst of bright...

Sun’s Coronal Mass Ejection Wave Reaches Voyager 1

Jul 9, 2014 by News Staff

Voyager 1 spacecraft has been hit by a ‘shock wave’ from the Sun as it travels through interstellar space, according to NASA scientists. Voyager 1....

A colossal CME burst off the side of the Sun on May 9, 2014. Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

IRIS Captures Huge Coronal Mass Ejection on Sun

Jun 1, 2014 by News Staff

Astronomers using NASA’s Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph have captured extraordinary footage of a colossal coronal mass ejection erupting...