The solar corona as a research area focuses on the physical processes governing the Sun’s outer atmosphere, characterized by low densities, high temperatures (∼10⁶ K), and complex magnetic structures. It integrates observational solar physics, plasma astrophysics, and magnetohydrodynamics to study coronal heating, magnetic reconnection, wave propagation, flares, and coronal mass ejections. Research emphasizes multi-wavelength diagnostics (EUV, X-ray, radio), spectropolarimetry, and numerical modeling to infer coronal magnetic fields, energy transport, and particle acceleration. This domain is central to understanding space weather, heliospheric conditions, and the coupling between the photosphere, chromosphere, and interplanetary medium.
A NASA spacecraft will make another close brush with the sun, the second of three planned encounters through the sizzling solar atmosphere.
Planetary Sciences
Mar 21, 2025
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156
A graduate research assistant at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of The University of Alabama system, has published a paper in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics that builds on an earlier study to ...
Plasma Physics
Feb 4, 2025
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145
Mars's atmosphere and climate are impacted by interactions with solar wind, a stream of plasma comprised of protons and electrons that flows from the sun's outermost atmosphere (corona), traveling at speeds of 400–1,000 kilometers ...
For decades, scientists have tried in vain to accurately predict solar flares—intense bursts of light on the sun that can send a flurry of charged particles into the solar system. Now, using NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, ...
Astronomy
Jan 15, 2025
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91
ESA's Proba-3 will be the first mission to create an artificial total solar eclipse by flying a pair of satellites 150 meters apart. For six hours at a time, it will be able to see the sun's faint atmosphere, the corona, ...
Astronomy
Dec 3, 2024
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52
A research team has presented a mechanism that explains how coronal dimmings—darkened, depleted areas on the sun caused by intense plasma eruptions—recover.
Astronomy
Nov 21, 2024
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37
The double-satellite Proba-3 is the most ambitious member yet of ESA's Proba family of experimental missions. Two spacecraft will fly together as one, maintaining precise formation down to a single millimeter.
Space Exploration
Nov 19, 2024
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31
Syed Ayaz, a researcher at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), has published a paper in Scientific Reports that builds on an earlier first-of-its-kind study that examined kinetic Alfvén waves (KAW) as a possible ...
Plasma Physics
Nov 14, 2024
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62
Proba-3 is such an ambitious mission that it needs more than one single spacecraft to succeed. In order for Proba-3's Coronagraph spacecraft observe the sun's faint surrounding atmosphere, its disk-bearing Occulter spacecraft ...
Planetary Sciences
Nov 7, 2024
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44
NOAA today shared the first images from the Compact Coronagraph (CCOR-1), a powerful solar telescope onboard the new GOES-19 satellite. CCOR-1, the world's first operational, space-based coronagraph, began observing the sun's ...
Astronomy
Oct 22, 2024
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