As solar wind blows, our heliosphere balloons

What happens when the solar wind suddenly starts to blow significantly harder? According to two recent studies, the boundaries of our entire solar system balloon outward—and an analysis of particles rebounding off of its ...

Saturn's radiation belts: A stranger to the solar wind

The radiation belts of Earth and Saturn differ more strongly than previously assumed. In these belts, very energetic particles, such as electrons and protons, move around the planet at high velocities - captured by its magnetic ...

Shining light on solar energetic particles and jets

A team of astronomers, led by PhD researcher Malcolm Druett of Northumbria University at Newcastle, have taken a big step forward in understanding a 30-year-old mystery in the process of formation of solar flares. Druett ...

Space weather model simulates solar storms from nowhere

Our ever-changing sun continuously shoots solar material into space. The grandest such events are massive clouds that erupt from the sun, called coronal mass ejections, or CMEs. These solar storms often come first with some ...

Electric sparks may alter evolution of lunar soil

The moon appears to be a tranquil place, but modeling done by University of New Hampshire and NASA scientists suggests that, over the eons, periodic storms of solar energetic particles may have significantly altered the properties ...

Solar variability and terrestrial climate

(Phys.org)—In the galactic scheme of things, the Sun is a remarkably constant star. While some stars exhibit dramatic pulsations, wildly yo-yoing in size and brightness, and sometimes even exploding, the luminosity of ...

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