Tag Archive for 'Sun'

The auroral dunes appear as a green-tinged and even pattern of waves resembling a striped veil of clouds or dunes on a sandy beach. Image credit: Kari Saari.

Auroral Dunes: Citizen Scientists Discover New Form of Aurora

Jan 30, 2020 by News Staff

Named the auroral dunes, the phenomenon was discovered by citizen scientists in Finland; it occurs at a relatively low altitude of 100 km (62 miles), in...

This image of the Sun’s surface was captured by NSF’s Inouye Solar Telescope. The image, taken at 789 nm, shows features as small as 30 km (18 miles). Image credit: NSO / NSF / AURA.

Inouye Solar Telescope Captures Most Detailed Images Ever Seen of Sun’s Surface

Jan 30, 2020 by News Staff

The high-resolution images from the National Science Foundation’s Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, on the summit of Haleakala, Hawai’i, show a close-up...

White fat cells (adipocytes) activate the lipolysis pathway to produce the free fatty acids that are used as heating fuel by brown adipose tissue. Nayak et al show that OPN3 is required for blue-light-enhanced activation of the lipolysis pathway. This explains the low body temperature of OPN3 mutant mice. Image credit: Nayak et al, doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2019.12.043.

Fat Cells Can Sense Light, Animal Study Shows

Jan 28, 2020 by News Staff

Light exposure regulates how two kinds of fat cells (adipocytes) work together to produce the raw materials that all other cells use for energy, according...

These 2.7 billion-year-old meteorites, about half a millimeter across, fell into the ocean and were collected from the deep sea. Image credit: Donald Brownlee / University of Washington.

Archean Earth’s Atmosphere was Rich in Carbon Dioxide, Researchers Say

Jan 27, 2020 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the University of Washington and NASA’s Ames Research Center has analyzed iron-rich micrometeorites collected from 2.7 billion-year-old...

Scanning electron microscope image of the 6.2-billion-year-old grain of silicon carbide from the Murchison meteorite. Image credit: Heck et al, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1904573117.

Scientists Find 7-Billion-Year-Old Stardust in Murchison Meteorite

Jan 13, 2020 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the United States, Switzerland and Australia has found 4.6 to 7-billion-year-old presolar grains of silicon carbide (SiC) in...

Forced magnetic reconnection, caused by a prominence from the Sun, was seen for the first time in images from SDO. This image shows the Sun on May 3, 2012, with the inset showing a close-up of the reconnection event imaged by SDO’s Atmospheric Imaging Assembly instrument, where the signature X-shape is visible. Image credit: NASA / SDO / Abhishek Srivastava / IIT.

Solar Dynamics Observatory Observes Forced Magnetic Reconnection in Sun’s Corona

Dec 18, 2019 by News Staff

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has directly observed a new type of magnetic explosion — called forced reconnection — in the solar...

On Earth, the Northern and Southern lights occur when the solar wind (electrically charged particles from the Sun) follow our planet’s geomagnetic field lines to the poles and collide with the upper atmosphere. Mars lacks a global magnetic field, so instead the solar wind piles up in front of Mars in a bow shock, which blocks charged particles from reaching the bulk of the atmosphere. However, in a process first observed by NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft, some solar wind protons can slip past the bow shock by first bonding with electrons from the Martian upper atmosphere to form hydrogen atoms. Because these hydrogen atoms are electrically neutral, they can pass through the bow shock and go on to create an ultraviolet proton aurora on the dayside of Mars. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

‘Proton Aurora’ is Most Common Type of Aurora on Mars, Researchers Say

Dec 13, 2019 by News Staff

Proton aurora, a type of Martian aurora first identified in 2016, forms when protons from the solar wind interact with hydrogen in the extended portions...

Illustration of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe approaching the Sun. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Steve Gribben.

NASA Releases First Science Results from Parker Solar Probe Mission

Dec 6, 2019 by NASA

The four instruments of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, a robotic spacecraft designed to explore the Sun’s atmosphere, have returned unprecedented science...

This schematic of the heliosphere shows the solar wind begins slowing at approximately 4 AU radial distance from the Sun and continues to slow as it moves toward the outer Solar System and picks up interstellar material. Current extrapolations reveal the termination shock may currently be closer than found by the Voyager spacecraft. However, increasing solar activity will soon expand the heliosphere and push the termination shock farther out, possibly to the 84-94 AU range encountered by the Voyager spacecraft. Image credit: Southwest Research Institute / NASA / Adler Planetarium.

Solar Wind Slows in Outer Heliosphere, Data from New Horizons Confirm

Dec 4, 2019 by News Staff

As the solar wind — the supersonic stream of charged particles blown out by the Sun — moves farther from the Sun, it encounters an increasing...

SDO image of the solar corona in UV light (yellow lines represent the magnetic field on the surface of the Sun). Image credit: NASA / SDO / AIA / LMSAL.

Researchers Crack Mystery of Sun’s Magnetic Waves

Dec 3, 2019 by News Staff

For more than six decades, observations of our Sun have shown that as magnetic waves leave its interior they grow in strength, but until now there has...

NASA’s Voyager 2 Spacecraft Sends Back New Data on Interstellar Space

Nov 5, 2019 by News Staff

In November 2018, NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft became only the second human-made object to cross the outer edge of the Sun’s heliosphere, the bubble...

NASA’s Voyager spacecraft, one in the heliosheath and the other just beyond in interstellar space, took measurements as a solar event known as a global merged interaction region passed by each spacecraft four months apart. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Mary Pat Hrybyk-Keith.

Researchers Measure Pressure in Solar System’s Heliosheath

Oct 9, 2019 by News Staff

Using data from NASA’s Voyager spacecraft, a team of scientists has calculated the total pressure from particles in the outer region of the Solar System,...

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured this image of the Sun with sunspots in February 2013. The picture combines images from two SDO instruments: the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI), which takes pictures in visible light that show sunspots, and the Advanced Imaging Assembly (AIA), which took an image in the 304 angstrom wavelength showing the lower atmosphere of the Sun, which is colorized in red. Image credit: NASA / SDO / AIA / HMI / Goddard Space Flight Center.

New Model for Plasma Flow within Sun Provides Explanations for Sunspots, Other Solar Phenomena

Sep 20, 2019 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the University of Washington proposes a new model of plasma motion that would...

The four MMS spacecraft -- shown here in an artist’s concept -- have made more than 4,000 trips through the boundaries of Earth’s magnetic field. Image credit: NASA / Goddard / Conceptual Image Lab.

NASA’s MMS Spacecraft Makes First High-Resolution Measurements of Interplanetary Shock

Aug 16, 2019 by News Staff

Interplanetary shocks are a type of collisionless shock — events where particles transfer energy through electromagnetic fields instead of directly...

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

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Completes Two Orbits around Sun

Aug 15, 2019 by News Staff

Since the Parker Solar Probe launched on August 12, 2018, Earth has made a single trip around the Sun, while the spacecraft is well into its third orbit...

Astronomers Create New 3D Map of Milky Way Galaxy

Aug 2, 2019 by News Staff

By measuring the distance from the Sun to thousands of classical Cepheid stars and the associated young stellar populations scattered across the Milky...

NASA’s InSight lander used its IDC camera to record the Martian sunrise on April 24, 2019. This image was taken around 5:30 a.m. Mars local time. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

NASA’s InSight Lander Sees Stunning Sunrise and Sunset on Mars

May 6, 2019 by News Staff

In April 2019, NASA’s InSight lander used its Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC) to capture a series of Martian sunrise and sunset images. NASA’s InSight...

This infrared image was recorded by Subaru Telescope’s COMICS instrument. Sinclair et al used red, blue and yellow to infuse this image; regions of the atmosphere that are more yellow and red indicate the hotter areas. This highlights the auroral heating that occurs at Jupiter’s poles, where energy from the solar wind and magnetosphere are deposited. This image was captured on January 12, 2017. Image credit: NAOJ / NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Subaru Telescope Finds Evidence of Auroral Heating at Jupiter’s Poles

Apr 15, 2019 by News Staff

New observations with the Subaru Telescope, a Japanese 8-m telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, show that aurorae at Jupiter’s poles are heating the atmosphere...

Phobos transits the Sun’s disk, as seen by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on March 26, 2019. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS.

Martian Moons Phobos and Deimos Eclipse the Sun

Apr 8, 2019 by News Staff

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has captured several stunning videos of solar eclipses from the surface of the Red Planet. Phobos transits the Sun’s disk,...

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe approaching the Sun. Image credit: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Makes Second Close Approach to Sun

Apr 8, 2019 by News Staff

On April 4, 2019, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe achieved its second perihelion (close approach) of the Sun and flew within 15 million miles (24 million km)...

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