Tag Archive for 'Sun'

Artist’s conception of MAVEN’s Imaging UltraViolet Spectrograph (IUVS) observing Martian aurora, which is similar to Earth’s Aurora borealis but has a different origin. Image credit: University of Colorado.

NASA: Recent Solar Storm Sparked Global Aurora on Mars

Oct 2, 2017 by News Staff

A solar event on September 11, 2017 sparked a global aurora on the Red Planet more than 25 times brighter than any previously seen by NASA’s MAVEN (Mars...

A ‘Blue Marble’ image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA’s Earth-observing satellite Suomi NPP (named in honor of Verner E. Suomi of the University of Wisconsin). This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth’s surface taken on January 4, 2012. Image credit: NASA / NOAA / GSFC / Suomi NPP / VIIRS / Norman Kuring.

Researchers Produce Estimate of Earth’s Elemental Composition

Sep 20, 2017 by News Staff

A team of researchers at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia, has produced the most comprehensive estimate yet of Earth’s composition...

Hypothetical Planet 9. Image credit: R. Hurt, IPAC / Caltech.

Planet 9, Probably Not a Scooped Up Exoplanet

Sep 14, 2017 by James Romero

Suggestions that the hypothesized Planet 9 formed outside our solar system, or was even stolen from a rival solar system, have been dealt a blow by investigations...

An X9.3-class solar flare flashes in the middle of the Sun on September 6, 2017. This image was captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory at 11:58:42 UTC and shows light in the 304 angstrom wavelength. Image credit: NASA / GSFC / SDO.

NASA’s Sun Watching Observatory Sees Two Powerful Solar Flares

Sep 7, 2017 by Sergio Prostak

On September 6, 2017, an active region on the Sun released two X-class solar flares, captured here by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). An X9.3-class...

This artist’s conception shows a hypothetical tidally-locked planet with two moons orbiting in the habitable zone of a red dwarf star. Image credit: D. Aguilar / Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Tidally-Locked Planets More Common than Previously Thought, Astronomer Says

Aug 16, 2017 by News Staff

Dr. Rory Barnes, an assistant professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrobiology Program at the University of Washington, arrived at this finding...

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...

Flaring, active regions of the Sun are highlighted in this image combining observations from several telescopes. High-energy X-rays from NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) are shown in blue; low-energy X-rays from Japan’s Hinode spacecraft are green; and extreme ultraviolet light from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is yellow and red. All three telescopes captured their solar images around the same time on April 29, 2015. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / GSFC / JAXA.

Sun’s Core Rotates Nearly 4 Times Faster than Its Surface, SOHO Data Reveal

Aug 2, 2017 by News Staff

Using data from the NASA/ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), solar physicists have found evidence of a type of seismic wave (gravity waves,...

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured an X-class solar flare erupting on the Sun on December 19, 2014. This image blends two wavelengths of extreme UV light, 171 (gold) and 131 (purple). Image credit: NASA / SDO / Duberstein.

Sun is Solar-Type Star After All

Jul 16, 2017 by News Staff

A study led by University of Montreal researchers has confirmed that our Sun is indeed a solar-type star. Published in the journal Science, the findings...

This scanning electron microscope image shows a tardigrade. Image credit: Diane Nelson, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.

Earth’s Most Indestructible Creature Identified: Tardigrade

Jul 14, 2017 by News Staff

Water-dwelling, eight-legged, segmented micro-animals called tardigrades will survive the risk of extinction from all astrophysical catastrophes, and be...

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...

This image from ALMA shows the M2 spectral-type supergiant star Betelgeuse. Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / E. O’Gorman / P. Kervella.

ALMA Analyzes Atmosphere of Supergiant Star Betelgeuse

Jun 28, 2017 by Sergio Prostak

Astronomers have used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to observe the nearby supergiant star Betelgeuse. Beyond just delivering...

Georgia Tech researchers propose that a ‘switch-like’ magnetosphere exists at Uranus in both equinox and solstice seasons, where the planetary rotation drives the interchange between an open magnetosphere and a closed magnetosphere each Uranus day. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Uranus Has ‘Switch-Like’ Magnetosphere

Jun 27, 2017 by News Staff

A new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics suggests that the magnetosphere of the ice giant Uranus gets flipped on and...

A view of the limb of the Sun. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.

Researchers Uncover Origins of Solar Spicules

Jun 26, 2017 by News Staff

A team of solar physicists from the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute, University of Oslo and Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory...

This artist’s impression shows the dust and gas around a binary star system. Image credit: ESO / L. Calcada.

Low-Mass Stars are Born in Pairs, Astronomers Claim

Jun 19, 2017 by News Staff

According to a team of astronomers from Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley, low-mass stars are always born with a companion,...

Jupiter is the oldest planet in the Solar System. Image credit: NASA.

Jupiter is Solar System’s Oldest Planet, Planetary Researchers Say

Jun 12, 2017 by News Staff

The gas giant Jupiter is not only the most massive planet in our Solar System, but it’s also the oldest, according to an international team of planetary...

This image shows a region of star formation where methyl isocyanate was found. The insert shows the molecular structure of this chemical. Image credit: L. Calcada / ESO / Digitized Sky Survey 2.

ALMA Detects Prebiotic Molecule in Multiple Protostar System

Jun 8, 2017 by News Staff

Astronomers have harnessed the power the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile to detect methyl isocyanate — a chemical building...

This illustration reveals how the gravitation of the white dwarf Stein 2051B warps space and bends the light of a distant star behind it. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured images of Stein 2051B as it passed in front of the background star. During the close alignment, Stein 2051B deflected the starlight, which appeared offset by about 2 milli-arcseconds from its actual position. From this measurement, astronomers calculated that the white dwarf’s mass is roughly 68% of the Sun’s mass. Image credit: NASA / ESA / A. Field, STScI.

Hubble Measures Deflection of Star’s Light by Foreground White Dwarf

Jun 7, 2017 by News Staff

The first observation of displacement of a star due to bending of its light by another celestial body other than our Sun is revealed in new research. This...

This series of dots with varying distances between them shows the slow dance of two members of the brown-dwarf binary system Luhman 16AB. The image is a stack of 12 images made over the course of three years with Hubble. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / L. Bedin et al.

Hubble Observes Graceful Dance of Luhman 16AB Brown Dwarfs

Jun 5, 2017 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to track the two components of Luhman 16AB, the third closest system to the Solar System. This...

The huge storm churning through the atmosphere in Saturn’s northern hemisphere overtakes itself as it encircles the planet in this true-color view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. This picture, captured on Feb. 25, 2011, was taken about 12 weeks after the storm began, and the clouds by this time had formed a tail that wrapped around the planet. Some of the clouds moved south and got caught up in a current that flows to the east (to the right) relative to the storm head. This tail, which appears as slightly blue clouds south and west (left) of the storm head, can be seen encountering the storm head in this view. This storm is the largest, most intense storm observed on Saturn by NASA’s Voyager or Cassini spacecraft. It is still active today. As scientists have tracked this storm over several months, they have found it covers 500 times the area of the largest of the southern hemisphere storms observed earlier in the Cassini mission. The shadow cast by Saturn’s rings has a strong seasonal effect, and it is possible that the switch to powerful storms now being located in the northern hemisphere is related to the change of seasons after the planet’s August 2009 equinox. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

NASA’s Cassini Orbiter Watches as Saturn’s Solstice Arrives

May 30, 2017 by News Staff

Saturn’s solstice — the longest day of summer in the northern hemisphere and the shortest day of winter in the southern hemisphere — arrived...

Artist’s impression of the Jovian aurora. Image credit: JAXA.

NASA’s Juno Mission Delivers Preliminary Science Results

May 26, 2017 by News Staff

NASA’s Juno mission is rewriting what planetary researchers thought they knew about Jupiter, the largest and most massive planet in our Solar System:...

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