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NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory has been staring at the sun, against its parents' advice no doubt, for three years now. Not only that, it's been doing it at different wavelengths at the same time.
We've learned a lot about the closest star to Earth since then and we've seen some spectacul... |
23 April 2013
09:10 GMT |
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You probably think rain is an exclusively earthly phenomenon, certainly, it's not something that happens on the sun. But you'd be wrong, at least if you're willing to bend the definition of "rain" a little. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured some spectacular images of activity on the sun... |
21 February 2013
14:21 GMT |
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We are all made of stardust. This saying is attributed to several people and, unlike most popular sayings, it's absolutely true. We and everything around us was created deep in the bowels of stars like our sun or much larger. Incidentally, that's the name of the beautiful video you see above which depicts... |
4 February 2013
17:31 GMT |
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Astronomers may be looking at stars in distant galaxies, but they're looking at the star nearest to us as well, the sun. There are plenty of instruments constantly scanning the sun, but there's also a lot to learn.A few months ago, NASA launched a short-lived space telescope, the High Resolution Coronal Ima... |
24 January 2013
13:21 GMT |
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As the sun is getting closer to the peak of activity in its 11-year weather cycle, things are becoming interesting. Astronomers observed a massive solar flare erupt on the sun yesterday and it's only the beginning.
The flare spewed off huge amounts of superheated plasma into space, heading our way in fact. The... |
12 January 2013
07:41 GMT |
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The sun is nearing the height of its 11-year activity cycle, so people watching the sun are going to see a lot more action. People actually watching the sun for too long will do damage to their eyesight, but the people at NASA, for example, can capture all the glory and share it with us. Though maybe they shouldn�... |
5 January 2013
01:31 GMT |
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There's plenty of diversity among the planets in the Solar System, hinting at an unimaginable diversity among the planets in our galaxy, not to mention the universe.
Mercury, the closest planet to the sun doesn't get as much attention as most of the other planets, but it's one of the most peculiar.
... |
29 December 2012
14:01 GMT |
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As you may have noticed, unless the sky is really clouded, there was a full moon last night and it's going to be one tonight as well.
It's the 13th full moon of the year, something that happens rather infrequently, when the first full moon is very early in the year and the last full moon is very late in th... |
28 December 2012
19:21 GMT |
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The God of Time and the Goddess of Beauty will pass one in front of the other early this Tuesday (Nov. 27), for a short, but intense reunion. If the weather allows it, the phenomenon will be visible from Earth after 4:30 a. m. local time, low above the horizon, on its east-southeast side, Space reports. With Saturn... |
26 November 2012
10:59 GMT |
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Windows 8 comes with a completely new Internet Explorer version, one that’s not only more secure than the previous builds, but also faster and more stable.
The built-in Windows browser however was one of the apps Microsoft used to compete with and even kill some other companies on the market, an ex-web applica... |
5 November 2012
15:51 GMT |
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Us humans like to always push the limits of where we can go or at least what we can see. But as we try to find ever-distant stars, the sun remains a mystery. And, unlike distant stars, unraveling the sun's mysteries will have a more immediate impact on our lives.
A new X-ray space telescope that's about to... |
2 November 2012
15:31 GMT |
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Voyager 1, the fastest man-made object still in existence and the most distant one at this point, is about to become the first interstellar man-made object as well.
Exactly when it's going to happen is anyone's guess, there are signs that it is very close, but those depend on our understanding of that reg... |
31 October 2012
09:37 GMT |
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Staring into the sun is considered bad for you by most people. Well, it is bad for you, unless you have a specific reason for doing it and the technology to do it safely. That's not the case for most people, thankfully NASA is thinking about the rest of us mortals who don't have the means to marvel at the ... |
19 October 2012
15:41 GMT |
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On September 27, the solar surface released a relatively small flare, which resulted in a medium-sized coronal mass ejection (CME). According to experts at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center, the CME is not dangerous to Earth.
The events were detecte... |
29 September 2012
05:00 GMT |
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A group of scientists proposes that the main reason why planetary formation stopped in our solar system is because the Sun, as a young star, produced numerous shock waves that destroyed the necessary conditions for the process to continue.
This may explain why objects such as the giant asteroid Vesta and the dwarf ... |
27 September 2012
11:08 GMT |
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During a meeting of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) held last month, experts in the field decided to attach a clear, constant value to an astronomical unit (AU), a measure of the distance between the Earth and the Sun.
Previously, the length of an AU was determined by a large number of ever-changing fact... |
25 September 2012
09:38 GMT |
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Investigators at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) have recently begun a new scientific study of the factors that influence the development of basal cell carcinoma (BCC), a common type of skin cancer.
The research was started because Queensland has the highest incidence of BCC in the country. The team ... |
24 September 2012
04:39 GMT |
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Scientists at the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, say that the twin NASA Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) mission has already begun transmiting science data back to Earth.
The two spacecraft launched aboard an Atlas V delivery system on August 30, from Space Lau... |
15 September 2012
05:43 GMT |
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Experts at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), in Greenbelt, Maryland, announce that the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has just entered the eclipse season. The latter occurs twice every year, around the time of the equinox.
For three weeks around equinoxes, the telescope's view of the Sun – i... |
7 September 2012
03:57 GMT |
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The NASA Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) has recently reached the venerable age of 15 in Earth's orbit. Launched on August 25, 1997, the spacecraft is scheduled to continue operations all the way through 2024.
ACE's main role is to measure potentially harmful radiations produced by the Sun, the solar s... |
30 August 2012
08:20 GMT |
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The Sun produced a new, middle-class solar flare on Friday, August 17, experts at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), in Greenbelt, Maryland, announce. The event was cataloged as an M5.6-class flare.
Solar physicists say that C-class solar flares are the weakest the Sun can produce, whereas X-class events ... |
20 August 2012
04:58 GMT |
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Most people know that the Sun is responsible for producing light and heat. Some know that it also produces something called the solar winds. But very few people know that our parent star also produces jets of high-energy electrons called electron strahl.
The latter was the target of a newly-released, 5-year study co... |
17 August 2012
09:56 GMT |
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The outermost part of the Sun may be rotating a bit slower than the rest of the star, a new study suggests. The conclusion is based on a careful analysis of the star's midsection. Experts say that the Sun is a lot slimmer than first calculated, and that its overall shape does not vary as much as thought.
These ... |
17 August 2012
05:21 GMT |
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Officials at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), in Greenbelt, Maryland, announce that the Sun released a new, medium-intensity solar flare on Saturday, July 28. The event does not pose a significant threat to the planet, but some effects could become visible.
The NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) was ... |
31 July 2012
04:17 GMT |
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A collaboration of researchers, including Doug Rumble and Liping Qin from the Carnegie Institution for Science (CIW), has recently been able to find out more data about the history of the early solar system, by studying extremely old meteorites that formed very shortly after the Sun did. The star is believed to be ... |
24 July 2012
08:48 GMT |
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Solar physicists operating the NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) announce the detection of a new solar flare, which began to form at 1:13 am EDT (0513 GMT) and peaked at 1:58 am EDT (0658 GMT), on July 19, 2012.
The flare was classified as an M7.7-class event, meaning it was of medium intensity, weaker than X-c... |
20 July 2012
05:03 GMT |
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Nicholeen Viall, a solar scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), in Greenbelt, Maryland, developed a new visualization technique for converting raw number data from solar observatories into graphs and images. The new datasets look like van Gogh paintings, experts say.
Turning numbers into images c... |
20 July 2012
04:40 GMT |
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After buying Sun back in 2010, Oracle continued Sun’s work on the SPARC T processors and now it is getting ready to present the new SPARC T5 processor at this year’s Hot Chips conference. Japanese company Fujitsu is also preparing to talk about its own SPARC architecture implementation during the same ev... |
19 July 2012
21:01 GMT |
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Astronomers using the NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) say that an impressive solar flare occurred earlier today, peaking at around 12:52 pm EDT (1652 GMT). Unlike the four recent solar flares that were produced last week, the new event did not originate from Active Region (AR) 1515.
According to scientists at ... |
13 July 2012
02:05 GMT |
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Sun Java System Communications Express customers should beware of a phishing scam that attempts to collect their email addresses, usernames, passwords and location details.
PhishTank came across a sample of this phishing page on Google Docs.
“Due to much junk/spam emails you receive daily, we are currently up... |
12 July 2012
10:05 GMT |
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Astronomers handling the data flowing out from the European Space Agency's (ESA) Herschel Space Observatory have just published a new image collected by the world's most complex telescope. The dataset covers the Vela C region, one of four such areas in the much-larger Vela Complex.
The latter is a stellar... |
9 July 2012
09:01 GMT |
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NASA is currently preparing for the launch of its High Resolution Coronal Imager (HI-C) solar telescope, which is scheduled to take place on July 11. This is not a spacecraft, but rather an instrument that will spend only a few minutes out of Earth's atmosphere.
Hi-C will be carried to space aboard a Black Bra... |
6 July 2012
04:56 GMT |
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As the Sun approaches a new maximum in its 11-year cycle, it is beginning to produce an increased number of solar flares and coronal mass ejection. July 4 was no exception, as data provided by the NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) can confirm.
The sensitive instruments aboard the spacecraft were able to detect a... |
5 July 2012
11:28 GMT |
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Located around 1,300 light-years away, in the constellation Orion, the celestial object known as V1647 Orionis is a star that is only now catching shape and which will not be completely formed for at least several million years. Astronomers have recently been able to observe it as it produced intense X-rays.
Scienti... |
4 July 2012
04:44 GMT |
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A study published in the July 2 issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters shows the first-ever image of upward surges of solar gases that turn into quiescent coronal loops. The process was proposed a while back, but never photographed as it happened before.
By studying this phenomenon, it may become possible to g... |
2 July 2012
06:01 GMT |
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A star grouping first discovered more than 180 years ago, but never really investigated in detail by astronomers, may hold the key towards making it easier for us to detect extrasolar planets. The cosmic formation is called NGC 6774, or Ruprecht 147.
What is interesting about this particular structure is that the s... |
26 June 2012
14:01 GMT |
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AR 1504, a newly developed active region on the surface of the Sun, rotated into view on the left side of the star 5 days ago. Since June 10, it has released two solar flares and two coronal mass ejections, and highly charged material is currently traveling towards Earth.
The first solar flare was an M-class event, ... |
15 June 2012
05:31 GMT |
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Solar physicists have recently used the NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and the Big Bear Solar Observatory's (BBSO) New Solar Telescope (NST) to study the upper atmosphere of the Sun, called the corona. Their research revealed the presence of ultrafine loops of material within this layer.
Figuring out th... |
13 June 2012
04:00 GMT |
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According to the conclusions of a study conducted using the NASA Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), it would appear that the solar neighborhood contains fewer failed stars called brown dwarfs than originally suspected.
Brown dwarfs are celestial bodies that blur the distinction between stars and gas giants... |
9 June 2012
05:40 GMT |
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Astronomers say that a space rock that has only recently been discovered flew past Earth earlier today, May 29, at 0700 UTC (03:00 am EDT), without posing any kind of dangers to the planet. The small asteroid passed within 14,440 kilometers (8,950 miles) of the surface.
This is one of the ten closest asteroid approa... |
29 May 2012
09:31 GMT |
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In less than two weeks, Venus will transit the Sun for the last time in our lives. Literally. The planet moves in between Earth and the Sun twice every few years, but these periods are spaced more than a century apart. The next Venusian transit will occur in December 2117.
The upcoming transit will take place betwe... |
24 May 2012
10:36 GMT |
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Officials managing the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), a joint mission between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), have just uploaded a new image relayed back to Earth by the telescope, showing Jupiter and Mercury in conjunction.
Both planets can be seen to the right of the Sun. Mercury is the brig... |
23 May 2012
10:57 GMT |
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A team of astronomers from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) have recently announced that they were unable to find any signs of dark matter around the Sun. Their findings caused a lot of controversy, and now another group is arguing that the study was flawed from the get-go.
Institute for Advanced Study invest... |
22 May 2012
10:56 GMT |
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Officials at the European Space Agency (ESA) announce that the organization's Proba-2 satellite was able to photograph four instances of the partial solar eclipse that occurred this Sunday, May 20.
Data collected by the spacecraft will primarily be used to determine the health level on the SWAP instrument, whic... |
21 May 2012
10:09 GMT |
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In a paper published in the May 16 online issue of the top scientific journal Nature, astronomers propose that Sun-like stars can produce explosions up to 10,000 times more energetic than those that our parent star is known to have ever produced. These phenomena are known as “superflares.” The same team ... |
17 May 2012
08:38 GMT |
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In a paper published in the May 10 online issue of the esteemed journal Science Express, astronomers reveal that the Sun has no bow shock. The discovery was made using the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX), a probe developed by NASA specifically to investigate such a potential structure.
Our understanding of bas... |
11 May 2012
04:16 GMT |
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As I'm sure many of you have wondered why the Earth stays in a stable orbit around the Sun, here is a short video clip uploaded to YouTube by the guys at MinutePhysics, providing a limited, yet entertaining explanation of why this happens. I find it very interesting that they brought up the number of dimensions ... |
4 May 2012
11:03 GMT |
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A recent astronomical study has revealed four white dwarf-class stars tearing apart and consuming just as many rocky extrasolar planets very similar to Earth. The discovery points at what might happen in our own solar system, when the Sun reaches the end of its main sequence.
For G-type yellow dwarf stars like our ... |
4 May 2012
09:49 GMT |
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Experts from Israel, the United States and Japan say that the solar system may have established itself in its current configuration faster than originally calculated. The Sun is about 4.6 billion years old, while Earth's age is estimated to be around 4.5 billion years.
Though establishing with certainty how al... |
3 May 2012
10:28 GMT |
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The NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is one of the spacecraft that monitors the Sun, and one of our most trusted aids when it comes to warning us about incoming solar flares and coronal mass ejections. Recently, it began its third year studying the solar surface. Here are some of its achievements.The mission is ... |
21 April 2012
03:56 GMT |
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