On Sept. 29th, a long filament of magnetism in the sun’s northern hemisphere erupted, producing a magnificent CME and the must-see movie above from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. Although the CME was not aimed at Earth, our planet might receive a glancing blow from the cloud on Oct. 2-3.
This event also hurled a magnificent CME into space. The magnetized … Read the rest of this article
Like a dragon breathing fire, a powerful blast of plasma erupts from the Sun in this colourised view of a ‘coronal mass ejection’.
These huge clouds of magnetised plasma are ejected from the Sun’s atmosphere – the corona – and launched into interplanetary space. Millions of tonnes of gas race away from the Sun at several million kilometres per hour.… Read the rest of this article
Something big is about to happen on the sun. According to measurements from NASA-supported observatories, the sun’s vast magnetic field is about to flip.
“It looks like we’re no more than 3 to 4 months away from a complete field reversal,” says solar physicist Todd Hoeksema of Stanford University. “This change will have ripple effects throughout the solar system.”
ESA’s Sun-watching Proba-2 satellite has been in orbit since November 2009, demonstrating a range of technologies and serving as a platform for scientific observations.
The 130-kg satellite carries two solar monitors. One is SWAP (Sun Watcher using Active Pixel System detector and Image Processing), a small telescope that captures the solar corona at wavelengths corresponding to temperatures of about a … Read the rest of this article
Like a comet, the solar system has a tail. NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) has for the first time mapped out the structure of this tail, which is shaped like a four-leaf clover.
Scientists describe the tail, called the heliotail, based on the first three years of IBEX imagery in a paper published in the July 10 edition of the … Read the rest of this article
NASA’s next scientific satellite, which is scheduled for launch June 26, will provide the most detailed look ever at the sun’s lower atmosphere or interface region.
The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) mission will observe how solar material moves, gathers energy, and heats up as it travels through this largely unexplored region of the solar atmosphere. The interface region, located … Read the rest of this article
During a 24 hour period straddling May 13th and 14th, the sun unleashed three X-class solar flares. These are the strongest flares of the year so far, and they signal a significant increase in solar activity. The source of the flares, a large sunspot on the sun’s eastern limb, appears poised to erupt again as it turns toward Earth.
One of the biggest sunspots of the current solar cycle is now turning toward Earth. Named AR1654, the active region is crackling with medium-sized (M-class) flares and could be poised to break the recent spell of calm space weather around our planet. It poses a threat for even stronger eruptions. NOAA forecasters estimate a 5% chance of X-flares today.
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Active …
This weekend the International Space Station will turn itself to position ESA’s SOLAR instrument for a better view of the Sun. It will be the first time the Station has changed attitude for scientific reasons alone.
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SOLAR consists of three complementary instruments: SOVIM (SOlar Variable and Irradiance Monitor) covers the near-ultraviolet, visible and thermal-infrared regions of the spectrum; SOL-ACES (SOLar …
ESA’s Sun-watching Proba-2 satellite experienced three partial solar eclipses last night while lucky observers watching from northern Australia were treated to a total solar eclipse.
During a total solar eclipse, the Moon moves in front of the Sun as seen from Earth, their alignment and separation such that the much closer Moon appears large enough to block out the light … Read the rest of this article
The Sun Now (Visible light)
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The Sun Now (H-Alpha light)
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Aurora Oval
(Northern Hemisphere) |
Aurora Oval
(Southern Hemisphere) |
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