From prayer and sacrifice to sunbathing, humans have worshipped the sun since time immemorial. And it's no wonder. At around 150m km away, it is close enough to provide the light, heat and energy to sustain the entire human ...
Space Exploration
Jun 1, 2017
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Every so often the sun emits an explosive burst of charged particles that makes its way to Earth and often wreaks havoc on power grids, aircraft and satellite systems. When clouds of high-speed charged particles come racing ...
Space Exploration
Mar 29, 2017
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NASA has begun development of a mission to visit and study the sun closer than ever before. The unprecedented project, named Solar Probe Plus, is slated to launch no later than 2018.
Space Exploration
Mar 16, 2017
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Ever since the 1950s discovery of the solar wind - the constant flow of charged particles from the sun - there's been a stark disconnect between this outpouring and the sun itself. As it approaches Earth, the solar wind is ...
Space Exploration
Sep 1, 2016
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NASA's first mission to "touch" the sun has passed a critical development milestone that keeps it well on track toward its scheduled summer 2018 launch.
Space Exploration
Jul 14, 2016
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Twenty years ago, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, a cooperative effort between NASA and the European Space Agency, launched into space and revolutionized our study of the sun and a scientific discipline called heliophysics ...
Space Exploration
Dec 2, 2015
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We can't see the wind, but we can learn about it by observing things that are being blown about. And by studying changes in a comet's bright tail of gas and ions, scientists are on the trail to solving two big mysteries about ...
Space Exploration
Oct 13, 2015
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496
(Phys.org)—Is Earth slowly heading for a new ice age? Looking at the decreasing number of sunspots, it may seem that we are entering a nearly spotless solar cycle which could result in lower temperatures for decades. "The ...
A study of jets travelling through the sun's corona at speeds between 200-500 kilometres per second has shown that the fast-moving columns of plasma are deflected much more strongly by the sun's magnetic field in the northern ...
Space Exploration
Jul 8, 2015
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NASA's Solar Probe Plus mission—which will fly closer to the sun than any spacecraft has before—reached a major milestone last month when it successfully completed its Critical Design Review, or CDR.
Space Exploration
Apr 9, 2015
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