Data from Southwest Research Institute-led instruments aboard ESA's Rosetta spacecraft have helped reveal auroral emissions in the far ultraviolet around a comet for the first time.
Astronomy
Sep 21, 2020
9
3088
Most meteorites that have landed on Earth are fragments of planetesimals, the very earliest protoplanetary bodies in the solar system. Scientists have thought that these primordial bodies either completely melted early in ...
Space Exploration
Jul 24, 2020
10
273
By cosmic standards the sun is extraordinarily monotonous. This is the result of a study presented by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in the upcoming issue of Science. For the first time, ...
Astronomy
Apr 30, 2020
12
711
Continued analysis of Parker Solar Probe data is starting to create a clearer picture of the sun's magnetic activity, which may bolster our ability to predict dangerous solar events.
Astronomy
Apr 30, 2020
14
509
When a fire extinguisher is opened, the compressed carbon dioxide forms ice crystals around the nozzle, providing a visual example of the physics principle that gases and plasmas cool as they expand. When our sun expels plasma ...
Space Exploration
Apr 15, 2020
17
661
A year ago, NASA's Parker Solar Probe flew closer to the sun than any satellite in history, collecting a spectacular trove of data from the very edge of the sun's million-degree corona.
Space Exploration
Dec 4, 2019
168
629
The sun's solar wind affects nearly everything in the solar system. It can disrupt the function of Earth's satellites and creates the lights of the auroras.
Space Exploration
Jul 29, 2019
67
913
For five months in mid 2017, Emily Mason did the same thing every day. Arriving to her office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, she sat at her desk, opened up her computer, and stared at images ...
Astronomy
Apr 5, 2019
26
925
Fast magnetic reconnection, the rapid convergence, separation and explosive snapping together of magnetic field lines, gives rise to northern lights, solar flares and geomagnetic storms that can disrupt cell phone service ...
Plasma Physics
Feb 19, 2019
1
192
As Earth orbits the sun at supersonic speed, it cuts a path through the solar wind. This fast stream of charged particles, or plasma, launched from the sun's outer layers would bombard Earth's atmosphere if not for the protection ...
General Physics
May 31, 2018
166
423
