https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. A researcher at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of The University of Alabama System, has published a new study in The Astrophysical Journal suggesting that tiny charged dust grains near the sun may significantly influence how energy moves through the solar corona, the outer atmosphere of the sun. The discovery potentially rewrites how scientists understand why the corona is millions of degrees hotter than the surface of the sun itself. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-cosmic-play-key-role-mystery.html Astronomy Wed, 01 Jul 2026 18:40:05 EDT news702142262 A new Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) study based on data from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has uncovered insights into why the solar wind gradually slows as it moves toward the edge of the solar system and the boundary with interstellar space. The study "The Gradual Slowing of the Solar Wind in the Outer Heliosphere" is published in The Astrophysical Journal. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-horizons-tracks-solar-slowdown-interstellar.html Astronomy Mon, 29 Jun 2026 19:20:31 EDT news701963730 Electrons around Jupiter have been caught in the process of being accelerated, revealing a potentially unified mechanism for particle acceleration. The findings, published in Nature, may help constrain how energetic particles are produced throughout the universe. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-jupiter-reveals-electrons-relativistic.html Astronomy Thu, 04 Jun 2026 12:00:07 EDT news699786541 On May 21, ground controllers powered down NASA's AWE (Atmospheric Waves Experiment) instrument, bringing the data collection phase of the mission to a successful and scheduled end, surpassing its planned two-year mission. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-nasa-awe-instrument-mission-earth.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 21 May 2026 19:20:04 EDT news698599201 It takes a moment for the eyes to adjust. A faint spark appears in the darkness; then another, brighter one. Soon, stars, planets and entire constellations emerge. Before long, a whole galaxy stretches across the sky, visible to the naked eye. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-threat-pollution-world-darkest-skies.html Astronomy Sun, 26 Apr 2026 11:40:01 EDT news696422376 Our planet rests inside a magnetic cocoon filled with plasma—but it's not always peaceful and quiet. Activity from the sun can send waves through this space, and some of those disturbances can even reach Earth, affecting our power grid. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-volunteers-rare-space-weather-events.html Planetary Sciences Fri, 17 Apr 2026 13:20:01 EDT news695645895 Research led by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has integrated three types of machine learning models to generate solar magnetic patches with physical properties and used those as a query to find matching patches in real observations. This elevates generative artificial intelligence (AI) from a means to produce artificial data to a novel tool for scientific data interrogation, supporting applicability beyond the heliophysics domain. The paper is published in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-virtual-sunspots-ai-rare-magnetic.html Astronomy Tue, 14 Apr 2026 18:10:01 EDT news695404022 Fast solar winds originating from the sun can have direct impacts on Earth—disrupting systems like GPS, aviation, electrical grids, and satellite and radio communications. A new paper by New Mexico State University astronomy graduate student Khagendra Katuwal examines the connection between coronal holes and solar wind streams, helping improve our understanding of how the sun's magnetic structure influences space weather. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-student-coronal-holes-space-weather.html Astronomy Wed, 08 Apr 2026 15:00:01 EDT news694870433 Every eleven years, the sun's magnetic field flips. Sunspots—dark, cooler regions on the sun's surface that mark intense magnetic activity and often trigger solar eruptions—appear at mid-latitudes and migrate toward the star's equator in a butterfly-shape pattern before fading as the cycle resets. While this spectacle on the star's surface has long been visible to astronomers, where this powerful cycle begins inside the star has remained hidden until now. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-physicists-sun-magnetic-kilometers-surface.html Astronomy Tue, 17 Mar 2026 16:00:09 EDT news692976901 New research by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and the National Science Foundation's National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF-NCAR) has developed a new tool providing a first step toward the ability to forecast space weather weeks in advance, instead of just hours. This advance warning could allow agencies and industries to mitigate impacts to GPS, power grids, astronaut safety and more. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-ai-tool-solar-regions-advance.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 19 Feb 2026 15:17:41 EST news690736621 Images captured by NASA's Parker Solar Probe as the spacecraft made its record-breaking closest approach to the sun in December 2024 have now revealed new details about how solar magnetic fields responsible for space weather escape from the sun—and how sometimes they don't. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-parker-solar-probe-spies.html Astronomy Thu, 11 Dec 2025 16:54:28 EST news684694441 Astronomers have produced the first continuous, two-dimensional maps of the outer edge of the sun's atmosphere, a shifting, frothy boundary that marks where solar winds escape the sun's magnetic grasp. By combining the maps and close-up measurements, scientists from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) showed that the boundary grows larger, rougher and spikier as the sun becomes more active. The findings could help scientists improve models showing how the sun affects Earth, and better predict atmospheric complexity for other stars. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-astronomers-sun-outer-boundary.html Astronomy Thu, 11 Dec 2025 12:57:04 EST news684680186 The sun has become increasingly active since 2008, a new NASA study shows. Solar activity is known to fluctuate in cycles of 11 years, but there are longer-term variations that can last decades. Case in point: Since the 1980s, the amount of solar activity had been steadily decreasing all the way up to 2008, when solar activity was the weakest on record. At that point, scientists expected the sun to be entering a period of historically low activity. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-nasa-analysis-sun-ramping.html Astronomy Mon, 15 Sep 2025 16:22:04 EDT news677172122 An unexpectedly strong solar storm rocked our planet on April 23, 2023, sparking auroras as far south as southern Texas in the U.S. and taking the world by surprise. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-nasa-missions-severity-solar-storms.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 01 Jul 2025 17:07:04 EDT news670608421 A trio of heliophysicists and satellite trackers at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the Goddard Planetary Heliophysics Institute at the University of Maryland has found evidence showing that Starlink satellites reenter Earth's atmosphere faster during heightened solar activity. For their paper posted on the arXiv preprint server, Denny Oliveira, Eftyhia Zesta and Katherine Garcia-Sage analyzed Starlink satellite data over the years 2020 and 2024, during a rising phase of the solar cycle. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-starlink-satellites-fall-earth-faster.html Space Exploration Mon, 09 Jun 2025 13:40:01 EDT news668694716 In the world of black holes, there are generally three size categories: stellar-mass black holes (about five to 50 times the mass of the sun), supermassive black holes (millions to billions of times the mass of the sun), and intermediate-mass black holes with masses somewhere in between. https://phys.org/news/2025-05-astronomers-evidence-intermediate-mass-black.html Astronomy Fri, 30 May 2025 11:59:04 EDT news667825141 Scientists from Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, together with scientists from the University of Graz, Kanzelhöhe Observatory, and Columbia University, have discovered how coronal holes—vast magnetic windows in the sun's corona—launch fast solar wind streams into space at supersonic speeds, shaping their flow throughout the heliosphere. https://phys.org/news/2025-04-reveals-solar-coronal-holes-spray.html Astronomy Tue, 22 Apr 2025 09:50:03 EDT news664534201 Mission engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California turned off the cosmic ray subsystem experiment aboard Voyager 1 on Feb. 25 and will shut off Voyager 2's low-energy charged particle instrument on March 24. Three science instruments will continue to operate on each spacecraft. The moves are part of an ongoing effort to manage the gradually diminishing power supply of the twin probes. https://phys.org/news/2025-03-nasa-powers-voyager-science-instruments.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 05 Mar 2025 14:56:56 EST news660409009 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 help understand why the solar corona is so hot compared to the surface of the sun itself. https://phys.org/news/2025-02-interaction-kinetic-suprathermal-particles-key.html Plasma Physics Tue, 04 Feb 2025 14:15:04 EST news657900901 On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse swept across North America, from the western shores of Mexico, through the United States, and into northeastern Canada. For the eclipse, NASA helped fund numerous research projects and called upon citizen scientists in support of NASA's goal to understand how our home planet is affected by the sun—including, for example, how our star interacts with Earth's atmosphere and affects radio communications. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-nasa-solar-eclipse-yield-intriguing.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 10 Dec 2024 12:15:46 EST news653055339 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 explanation for why the solar corona, the outermost layer of the sun's atmosphere, is approximately 200 times hotter than the surface of the sun itself. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-kinetic-alfvn-key-mystery-solar.html Plasma Physics Thu, 14 Nov 2024 16:07:04 EST news650822821 Magnetic fields are everywhere in our solar system. They originate from the sun, planets, and moons, and are carried throughout interplanetary space by solar wind. This is precisely why magnetometers—devices used to measure magnetic fields—are flown on almost all missions in space to benefit the Earth, planetary, and heliophysics science communities, and ultimately enrich knowledge for all humankind. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-quantum-scale-sensors-planetary-magnetic.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 07 Aug 2024 10:27:17 EDT news642245231 In a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal, a researcher from The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of the University of Alabama System, explores critical aspects of a phenomenon called kinetic Alfvén waves (KAWs) to provide fresh insights into an age-old heliophysics mystery. https://phys.org/news/2024-07-solar-corona-hotter-sun-surface.html Astronomy Mon, 29 Jul 2024 09:16:32 EDT news641463387 Who knew Earth's upper atmosphere was like alphabet soup? NASA's Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission has revealed unexpected C- and X-shaped formations in an electrified layer of gas high above our heads called the ionosphere. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-alphabet-soup-nasa-gold-mission.html Earth Sciences Thu, 27 Jun 2024 14:09:01 EDT news638716132 Ever since aurora chasers discovered Steve, a mysterious ribbon of purple light in the night sky, scientists have wondered whether it might have a secret twin. Now, thanks to a photographer's keen eye, and data from ESA's Swarm satellites, we may have found it. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-swarm-satellites-aurora-chasers-steve.html Astronomy Tue, 04 Jun 2024 10:48:03 EDT news636716881 The Wide-field Imager for Parker Solar Probe (WISPR) Science Team, led by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), captured the development of turbulence as a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) interacted with the ambient solar wind in the circumsolar space. This discovery is reported in the Astrophysical Journal. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-imaging-turbulence-solar-transients.html Astronomy Wed, 27 Mar 2024 13:20:04 EDT news630764402 April 17, 2021, was a day like any other day on the sun, until a brilliant flash erupted and an enormous cloud of solar material billowed away from our star. Such outbursts from the sun are not unusual, but this one was unusually widespread, hurling high-speed protons and electrons at velocities nearing the speed of light and striking several spacecraft across the inner solar system. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-multiple-spacecraft-story-giant-solar.html Astronomy Mon, 04 Mar 2024 16:47:03 EST news628793221 Correcting 50-year-old errors in the math used to understand how electromagnetic waves scatter electrons trapped in Earth's magnetic fields will lead to better protection for technology in space. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-space-physics-satellite-safety.html Space Exploration Mon, 04 Mar 2024 13:36:01 EST news628781759 A coronal mass ejection erupted from the sun on 28 October 2021 and was spread over such a wide area that Mars and Earth, while on opposite sides of the sun and around 250 million kilometers apart, received an influx of energetic particles. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-giant-solar-eruption-felt-earth.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 03 Aug 2023 06:36:21 EDT news610263372 Nearly 5,000 kilometers above the sun's surface lies a century-old question for solar physicists—how are temperatures in the star's upper atmosphere (corona) hundreds of times hotter than temperatures at the sun's visible surface? https://phys.org/news/2023-06-sun-coldest-region-secret-million-degree.html Astronomy Wed, 14 Jun 2023 15:44:31 EDT news605976260