The heliosphere—made of solar wind, solar transients, and the interplanetary magnetic field—acts as our solar system's personal shield, protecting the planets from galactic cosmic rays. These extremely energetic particles ...
Astronomy
Mar 29, 2024
6
1007
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 ...
Astronomy
Mar 4, 2024
0
392
Much like the Earth, our sun is a dynamic body with a complex—and sometimes violent—weather system. Solar storms eject highly energetic radiation that can impact our planet, forming strong auroras and disrupting power ...
Astronomy
Jan 25, 2024
3
48
Memories of solar impact from seven ESA spacecraft have been collected and analyzed in a first-of-its-kind study to better understand the radiation environment in space. Huge amounts of engineering data has been used to reveal ...
Space Exploration
Aug 11, 2023
0
8
New models of how the geomagnetic field that shields the Earth's atmosphere from cosmic rays has changed over tens of thousands of years can help us understand how the climate has changed over a similar timescale.
Planetary Sciences
Jun 6, 2023
0
8
A massive eruption of solar material, known as a coronal mass ejection or CME, was detected escaping from the sun at 11:36 p.m. EDT on March 12, 2023.
Astronomy
Mar 15, 2023
0
131
In the early hours of Sunday, September 4, Solar Orbiter flew by Venus for a gravity-assist maneuver that alters the spacecraft's orbit, getting it even closer to the sun. As if trying to get the orbiter's attention as it ...
Space Exploration
Sep 6, 2022
0
14
In 1982, author James Michener published his sprawling novel "Space." In it, he describes a fictional Apollo 18 mission to the moon. While the astronauts are on the surface, the sun unleashes a huge storm, trapping them outside ...
Space Exploration
Sep 6, 2022
0
16
Researchers from the Institute of Modern Physics (IMP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and their collaborators have reported a solar energetic particle (SEP) event observed by the Mars Energetic Particle Analyzer ...
Astronomy
Aug 5, 2022
0
5
Something is happening to the sun. One of the regions of the solar atmosphere currently exhibiting sunspots caught the attention of observatories on July 11, when there was a sudden increase in ultraviolet and X-ray brightness. ...
Astronomy
Jul 21, 2022
1
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