This is a question we are often asked: what is the difference between a coronal mass ejection (CME) and a solar flare? We discussed it in a recent astrophoto post, but today NASA put out a video with amazing graphics that ...
Space Exploration
Sep 23, 2014
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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 ...
Toward the end of 2017, a massive new region of magnetic field erupted on the Sun's surface next to an existing sunspot. The powerful collision of magnetic energy produced a series of potent solar flares, causing turbulent ...
Space Exploration
Jan 17, 2020
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Something unexpected is happening on the sun. 2013 is supposed to be the year of Solar Max, the peak of the 11-year sunspot cycle. Yet 2013 has arrived and solar activity is relatively low. Sunspot numbers are well below ...
Space Exploration
Mar 4, 2013
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When our Sun erupts with giant explosions—such as bursts of radiation called solar flares—we know they can affect space throughout the solar system as well as near Earth. But monitoring their effects requires having observatories ...
Space Exploration
Nov 16, 2017
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About 17 years ago, J. Martin Laming, an astrophysicist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, theorized why the chemical composition of the Sun's tenuous outermost layer differs from that lower down. His theory has recently ...
Astronomy
Mar 2, 2021
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Solar flares can release the energy equivalent of many atomic bombs, enough to cut out satellite communications and damage power grids on Earth, 93 million miles away. The flares arise from twisted magnetic fields that occur ...
Space Exploration
Jan 14, 2015
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In the months ahead, two of NASA's Mars spacecraft will have an unprecedented opportunity to study how solar flares—giant explosions on the sun's surface—could affect robots and future astronauts on the Red Planet.
Planetary Sciences
Apr 29, 2024
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(Phys.org)—Northern night skies have recently been alive with light. Those shimmering curtains get their start about 93 million miles away, on the sun.
Space Exploration
Oct 2, 2012
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NASA's extensive fleet of spacecraft allows scientists to study the Sun extremely close-up—one of the agency's spacecraft is even on its way to fly through the Sun's outer atmosphere. But sometimes taking a step back can ...
Space Exploration
Oct 9, 2020
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