Tag Archive for 'Sun'

Large Magellanic Cloud on Collision Course with Milky Way Galaxy

Jan 7, 2019 by News Staff

The Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy located approximately 163,000 light-years away, is on a collision course with the Milky Way with which it will...

An artist’s impression of the infant bow shock detected by ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Image credit: ESA.

Rosetta Detects Signs of Infant ‘Bow Shock’ at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Dec 26, 2018 by News Staff

The ‘bow shock’ is the first boundary the solar wind encounters as it approaches planets or comets. From 2014 to 2016, ESA’s Rosetta orbiter studied...

This illustration shows the position of NASA’s Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes, outside of the heliosphere, a protective bubble created by the Sun that extends well past the orbit of Pluto. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Voyager 2 Reaches Interstellar Space

Dec 11, 2018 by News Staff

Forty-one years after it launched into space, NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft has crossed the outer edge of the heliosphere. Called the heliopause, this...

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 Mission Maps Magnetic Reconnection in Earth’s Magnetotail

Nov 20, 2018 by News Staff

NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission consists of four identical spacecraft that orbit around Earth through the dynamic magnetic system surrounding...

Photograph of the 5,000th sunrise over Mars captured by NASA’s Opportunity rover. Image credit: NASA.

Researchers Capture Sound of Martian Sunrise

Nov 9, 2018 by News Staff

A team of researchers from Anglia Ruskin University and the University of Exeter, UK, has created the soundtrack of the Martian sunrise captured by NASA’s...

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

Parker Solar Probe Makes Its First Close Approach to the Sun

Nov 8, 2018 by News Staff

On November 5, 2018, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe achieved its first perihelion — its first close approach to the Sun — and flew within 15 million...

Acoustic monitoring of bee flight buzzes during the eclipse revealed an overall cessation of flight activity during totality. Image credit: Kevin McIver.

Bees Go Silent during Total Solar Eclipses, New Research Shows

Oct 11, 2018 by News Staff

The total solar eclipse of 21 August 2017 traversed 5,000 km from coast to coast of North America. In its 90-min span, sunlight dropped by three orders...

This image shows the position of NASA’s Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes, relative to the heliosphere. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

NASA’s Voyager 2 Probe About to Leave Solar System

Oct 8, 2018 by News Staff

NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft has detected an increase in cosmic rays that originate outside the Solar System. Currently, the probe is approximately 11...

UV active ink can be printed on paper making sensors cheap and easy to produce. Image credit: RMIT University.

Researchers Develop Wearable Paper-Based UV Sensors

Oct 3, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of researchers led by RMIT University has developed paper-based UV sensors that could help people manage vitamin absorption and avoid...

Sun-like stars rotate differentially, with the equator rotating faster than the higher latitudes. The blue arrows in the figure represent rotation speed. Differential rotation is thought to be an essential ingredient for generating magnetic activity and starspots. Image credit: MPI for Solar System Research / MarkGarlick.com.

Sun-Like Stars’ Equators Spin Up To 2.5 Times Faster than Their Poles, Say Astronomers

Sep 21, 2018 by News Staff

Our Sun rotates faster at its equator than at its poles. This process is known as differential rotation and is seen in the motion of sunspots. Now, a team...

First light data from Parker Solar Probe’s WISPR instrument suite: the right side of this image -- from WISPR’s inner telescope -- has a 40-degree field of view, with its right edge 58.5 degrees from the Sun’s center; the bright object slightly to the right of the image's center is Jupiter; the left side of the image is from WISPR’s outer telescope, which has a 58-degree field of view and extends to about 160 degrees from the Sun; it shows the Milky Way, looking at the Galactic center; there is a parallax of about 13 degrees in the apparent position of the Sun as viewed from Earth and from Parker Solar Probe. Image credit: NASA / Naval Research Laboratory / Parker Solar Probe.

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Gathers First Data

Sep 21, 2018 by News Staff

One month after its successful launch, Parker Solar Probe — a NASA’s robotic spacecraft designed to explore the Sun’s atmosphere — has...

Wind and solar farms are known to have local effects on heat, humidity and other factors that may be beneficial to the regions in which they are situated. Image credit: Erich Westendarp.

Large-Scale Solar and Wind Farms in Sahara Would Increase Rain and Vegetation

Sep 10, 2018 by News Staff

Energy generation by wind and solar farms could reduce carbon emissions and thus mitigate anthropogenic climate change. A new climate-modeling study, published...

An artist’s impression of a habitable exoplanet orbiting a red dwarf. Image credit: Sci-News.com / NASA.

Stellar Flares: Life Givers or Sterilizers of Worlds?

Aug 15, 2018 by James Romero

Have Carl Sagan and astrobiologists been too hard on stellar flares? A new study imagines an alternative scenario where they power photosynthesis around...

An artist’s concept of a Sun-mass star passing close to the early Solar System. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Sci-News.com.

Passing Star May Have Shaped Early Outer Solar System

Aug 13, 2018 by News Staff

A close flyby of a Sun-mass star several billion years ago could explain some unusual features observed in the outer Solar System. An artist’s concept...

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

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Launches Successfully

Aug 13, 2018 by News Staff

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe launched yesterday (August 12) from Space Launch Complex-37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, rising off the...

Illustration of the early solar disk, with an inset image of a blue crystal of hibonite, one of the first minerals to form in the Solar System. Image credit: Field Museum / University of Chicago / NASA / ESA / E. Field, STScl.

Meteorite Researchers Find Strong Evidence Early Sun Was Highly Active

Jul 31, 2018 by News Staff

By examining microscopic ice-blue crystals of mineral hibonite trapped inside a carbonaceous chondrite meteorite, an international team of scientists was...

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.

Solar and Heliospheric Observatory Reveals Sounds of the Sun

Jul 26, 2018 by News Staff

Data from the NASA/ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) have captured the dynamic movement of the Sun’s atmosphere for over two decades. Now,...

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 Discovered on Mars

Jul 24, 2018 by News Staff

NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) spacecraft has found a new type of Martian aurora that occurs over much of the day side of the...

An artist’s impression of a rocky asteroid. Image credit: Mark A. Garlick, Space-art.co.uk / University of Warwick / University of Cambridge.

Asteroid 2015 BZ509 Came from Interstellar Space 4.5 Billion Years Ago

May 22, 2018 by News Staff

2015 BZ509, an object in Jupiter’s co-orbital region with a retrograde motion around the Sun, is the first known asteroid to have been captured from...

Our planet is surrounded by the magnetosphere, shown here in blue. As charged particles from the Sun flow around the Earth’s magnetosphere, it forms the magnetosheath, shown in yellow. Image credit: Mary Pat Hrybyk-Keith / NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

NASA’s MMS Mission Discovers New Magnetic Process in Earth’s Magnetosheath Region

May 10, 2018 by News Staff

Earth is surrounded by a protective magnetic environment, the magnetosphere, which deflects a supersonic stream of charged particles from the Sun, known...

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