The visible surface of the sun, or the photosphere, is around 6,000°C. But a few thousand kilometers above it—a small distance when we consider the size of the sun—the solar atmosphere, also called the corona, is hundreds ...
Astronomy
May 25, 2021
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Daniel Wolf Savin and Michael Hahn have been fascinated by the universe since they were boys. For Savin, a senior research scientist in the Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory, discovering Albert Einstein at age 12 spurred the ...
Astronomy
Nov 18, 2013
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Something mysterious is going on at the Sun. In defiance of all logic, its atmosphere gets much, much hotter the farther it stretches from the Sun's blazing surface.
Space Exploration
Jul 27, 2018
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The first ever spacecraft to fly directly toward the Sun is poised to blast off Saturday, on a mission to plunge into our star's sizzling atmosphere and unlock the mysteries of the center of the solar system.
Space Exploration
Aug 11, 2018
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(Phys.org)—A team of researchers from the U.S., Japan and Switzerland has found possible evidence of a source of energy that could be responsible for heating the sun's corona. In their paper published in the journal Nature ...
Solar physicists have captured the first direct observational signatures of resonant absorption, thought to play an important role in solving the "coronal heating problem" which has defied explanation for over 70 years.
Space Exploration
Aug 23, 2015
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Modern telescopes and satellites have helped us measure the blazing hot temperatures of the sun from afar. Mostly the temperatures follow a clear pattern: The sun produces energy by fusing hydrogen in its core, so the layers ...
Space Exploration
Aug 25, 2015
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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 ...
Astronomy
Jun 14, 2023
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95
NASA's Parker Solar Probe has racked up an impressive list of superlatives in its first five years of operations: It's the closest spacecraft to the sun, the fastest human-made object and the first mission to ever "touch ...
Space Exploration
Sep 22, 2023
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417
Scientists have discovered tadpole-shaped jets coming out of regions with intense magnetic fields on the Sun. Unlike those living on Earth, these "tadpoles"—formally called pseudo-shocks—are made entirely of plasma, the ...
Space Exploration
Feb 19, 2019
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