The coronal veil: Are the sun's magnetic arches an optical illusion?
From afar, the Sun appears blank and featureless in visible light. But through a solar telescope in different wavelength, it is revealed to be much, much more.
From afar, the Sun appears blank and featureless in visible light. But through a solar telescope in different wavelength, it is revealed to be much, much more.
Astronomy
Jun 16, 2022
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For the first time, NASA's Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) has observed the merging of multimillion-degree X-ray spots on the surface of a magnetar, a supermagnetized stellar core no larger than a city.
Astronomy
Mar 08, 2022
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Many coronal loops—ropey strands of plasma that scientists have long thought existed in the Sun's atmosphere—may actually be optical illusions, according to a new paper that challenges prevailing assumptions of what we ...
Astronomy
Mar 02, 2022
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Rain is a common phenomenon on Earth. There is a similar phenomenon on the Sun, called coronal rain. It is related to the coronal heating and magnetic field, and plays a fundamental role in the mass cycle between the hot, ...
Astronomy
Apr 22, 2021
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New research shows that sunspots and other active regions can change the overall solar emissions. The sunspots cause some emissions to dim and others to brighten; the timing of the changes also varies between different types ...
Astronomy
Oct 12, 2020
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The hot outer layer of the sun, the corona, has a temperature of over a million degrees Kelvin, much more than the surface temperature of the Sun which is only about 5500 degrees Kelvin. Moreover, the corona is very active ...
Astronomy
Sep 30, 2019
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The Sun's corona, invisible to the human eye except when it appears briefly as a fiery halo of plasma during a solar eclipse, remains a puzzle even to scientists who study it closely. Located 1,300 miles from the star's surface, ...
Space Exploration
May 08, 2018
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scillating fibrils, explosive increases in temperature, and the footprints of coronal loops: 13 articles published today provide an overview of the results of the second flight of the balloon-borne solar observatory Sunrise.
Space Exploration
Mar 24, 2017
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Caltech applied physicists have experimentally simulated the sun's magnetic fields to create a realistic coronal loop in a lab.
Space Exploration
Nov 07, 2016
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The Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) instrument aboard NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) images the solar atmosphere in multiple wavelengths to link changes in the surface to interior changes. Its data includes images ...
Space Exploration
May 25, 2015
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