Dark fireworks on the sun

On June 7, 2011, Earth-orbiting satellites detected a flash of X-rays coming from the western edge of the solar disk. Registering only "M" (for medium) on the Richter scale of solar flares, the blast at first appeared to ...

Zooming in on an infant solar system

A team led by University of Arizona astronomer Joshua Eisner has observed in unprecedented detail the processes giving rise to stars and planets in nascent solar systems.

Twin Keck telescopes probe dual dust disks

Astronomers using the twin 10-meter telescopes at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii have explored one of the most compact dust disks ever resolved around another star. If placed in our own solar system, the disk would ...

Formation mechanism of solar double-decker filament

Researchers led by Zhang Yan and Yan Xiaoli from the Yunnan Observatories (YNAO) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have revealed the formation mechanism of solar double-decker filament.

When did the sun blow away the solar nebula?

The story of our solar system's origin is pretty well known. It goes like this: the sun began as a protostar in its "solar nebula" over 4.5 billion years ago. Over the course of several million years, the planets emerged ...

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