Tag Archive for 'Sun'

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.

Solar Activity Likely to Peak in 2024, Astronomers Say

Nov 29, 2023 by News Staff

Sunspots have been observed for over four centuries and the magnetic nature of sunspot cycles has been known for about a century. However, some of its...

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...

This image of the Sun was taken with the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager on board the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter mission. Image credit: Auchère et al., doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/202346039.

Solar Orbiter Captures Extreme-Ultraviolet Images of Sun’s Corona

Sep 6, 2023 by News Staff

Astronomers have used the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) instrument onboard the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft in a new mode of operation to observe...

$Plasma is constantly streaming away from the Sun, forming the solar wind. A likely source of this plasma is coronal holes, regions of the Sun’s corona with magnetic field lines that open outward. Chitta et al. observed a coronal hole in the extreme ultraviolet using the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft and identified several types of small-scale jets within it. Large numbers of jets occurred during the observation, but each one lasted only a few dozen seconds. The authors calculated that the jets provide enough energy and plasma to supply a large fraction of the solar wind, at least during quiet periods. Image credit: ESA / NASA / Solar Orbiter / EUI Team / Lakshmi Pradeep Chitta, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.$

Solar Orbiter Spots Tiny Jets Escaping from Outer Atmosphere of the Sun

Aug 28, 2023 by News Staff

Extreme ultraviolet images of the Sun obtained by the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) instrument onboard the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft have revealed...

This sequence of Hubble images chronicles the waxing and waning of the amount of cloud cover on Neptune. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Erandi Chavez, UC Berkeley / Imke de Pater, UC Berkeley.

Astronomers Discover Connection between Neptune’s Cloudy Weather and 11-Year Solar Cycle

Aug 17, 2023 by News Staff

Neptune is the most distant planet in the Solar System, an ice-giant that boasts an active and chaotic atmosphere. Using archival near-infrared observations...

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.

HAWC Observatory Detects High-Energy Gamma Rays from the Sun

Aug 7, 2023 by News Staff

New results from the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory extend the bright, hard gamma-ray emission from the solar disk observed with NASA’s...

An artist’s representation of BepiColombo flying through precipitating electrons that can trigger X-ray auroras on the surface of Mercury. Image credit: Thibaut Roger / Europlanet.

Auroral Mechanisms May Be Universal throughout Our Solar System

Jul 18, 2023 by News Staff

An analysis of data obtained during the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo spacecraft’s first Mercury flyby reveals that Mercury’s southern magnetosphere aurorae...

An artist’s impression of the early Earth. Image credit: NASA.

Earth’s Day was a Constant 19.5 Hours for Almost 1.5 Billion Years, Study Says

Jul 13, 2023 by News Staff

New research from the University of Toronto shows that from approximately 2 billion until 600 million years ago, an atmospheric tide driven by the Sun...

This image, taken with ESA’s Solar Orbiter on April 1, 2022, shows a partial section of the Sun with gas at 1 million degrees; the red paths correspond to some of the rain tracks analyzed by Antolin et al. Image credit: Patrick Antolin / ESA / Solar Orbiter / EUI / HRI.

Meteor-Like ‘Fireballs’ Spotted in Solar Corona

Jul 6, 2023 by News Staff

Coronal rain is the most dramatic display of cooling in the Sun’s corona. It corresponds to cool and dense clumps of plasma appearing over a timescale...

Parker Solar Probe has flown through the solar corona and sampled particles and magnetic fields there. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Parker Solar Probe Identifies Mechanism Driving Fast Solar Wind

Jun 12, 2023 by News Staff

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has flown close enough to the Sun to detect the fine structure of the solar wind close to where it is generated at the solar...

These images of the Sun’s surface were captured by the Inouye Solar Telescope. Image credit: NSF / AURA / NSO.

Inouye Solar Telescope Captures New Images of Sun’s Surface

May 22, 2023 by News Staff

New images from the Visible-Broadband Imager (VBI) on NSF’s 4-m Inouye Solar Telescope show a variety of sunspots and quiet regions of the Sun. These...

An artist’s impression of how astronomical forces affect the Earth’s motion, climate, and ice sheets. Image credit: NAOJ.

Astronomical Forcings Shaped Timing of Glacial Cycles during Early Pleistocene, Study Says

May 15, 2023 by News Staff

Glacial cycles during the Early Pleistocene epoch are characterized by a dominant 41,000-year periodicity and amplitudes smaller than those of glacial...

Schouten et al. find links at the atomic level between photosynthesis and exciton condensates, a strange state of physics that allows energy to flow frictionlessly through a material. Image credit: Evgeni Tcherkasski.

New Study Finds Link between Photosynthesis and Exciton Condensates

May 3, 2023 by News Staff

Bose-Einstein condensation of excitons — in which excitons condense into a single coherent quantum state, known as an exciton condensate —...

Energetic Particles from Young Sun May Have Kickstarted Life on Early Earth

May 2, 2023 by News Staff

Life most likely started during the Hadean Eon (4.5 to 4 billion years ago). However, the environmental conditions which contributed to the complexity...

This illustration depicts the asteroid Phaethon being heated by the Sun. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / IPAC.

Comet-Like Tail of Near-Earth Asteroid Phaethon is Not Made of Dust, Astronomers Say

Apr 25, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

New research shows that Phaethon’s comet-like activity cannot be explained by any kind of dust. This illustration depicts the asteroid Phaethon being...

If the Moon has enough water, and if it’s reasonably convenient to access, future explorers might be able to use it as drinking water or to convert it into hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel or oxygen to breathe. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Impact Glass Beads from the Moon Contain Solar Wind-Derived Water, Study Shows

Mar 29, 2023 by News Staff

Scientists from China and the United States have analyzed the impact glass beads from a lunar soil sample returned by China’s Chang’e-5 mission. Asteroid...

This artist’s impression shows ‘Oumuamua, the first interstellar object discovered in our Solar System. Recent observations show that the object is moving faster than predicted while leaving the Solar System. Astronomers assume that venting material from its surface due to solar heating is responsible for this behavior. This outgassing can be seen in this artist’s impression as a subtle cloud being ejected from the side of the object facing the Sun. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / ESO / M. Kornmesser.

Astronomers Offer New Explanation for Interstellar Object Oumuamua’s Unusual Acceleration

Mar 23, 2023 by News Staff

The previously unreconciled acceleration of 1I/2017 U1 ‘Oumuamua, a strange object of extrasolar origin discovered on October 19, 2017 by the Pan-STARRS...

V883 Orionis is a unique protostar whose temperature is just hot enough that the water in its circumstellar disk has turned to gas, making it possible for radio astronomers to trace the water’s origins. Image credit: ESO / L. Calçada.

Deuterium-Enriched Water Ties Protoplanetary Disks to Comets and Protostars

Mar 9, 2023 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have detected gaseous water in the planet-forming disk around V883 Orionis, a...

This feather-shaped iridescent cloud was captured just after sunset on January 27, 2023, the 3,724th Martian day, or Sol, of Curiosity’s mission. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS.

Curiosity Rover Images Sun Rays and Feather-Shaped Clouds on Mars

Mar 6, 2023 by News Staff

‘Sun rays’ are also known as crepuscular rays, from the Latin word for twilight. It was the first time sun rays have been so clearly viewed on Mars. This...

The impacts of ozone depletion and elevated UV-B levels on the terrestrial ecosystem. Image credit: Conor Haynes-Mannering, University of Nottingham.

Ozone Layer Collapse Contributed to End-Permian Mass Extinction

Jan 9, 2023 by News Staff

In new research, paleontologists analyzed abundances of sunscreen-like chemicals in 800 fossil pollen grains from 250-million-year-old rocks in Tibet. The...

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