Particle Radiation: Will It Be Safe for Humans To Fly to Mars?
Mission would be viable if it doesn’t exceed four years, international research team concludes. Sending human travelers to Mars would require scientists and engineers to…
Space Weather
Supercomputer Helps Protect Earth From Space Storms
University of Michigan researchers use Frontera supercomputer to improve space weather forecasting system, avoid worst effects of extreme events. “There are only two natural disasters…
NASA’s Juno spacecraft Detects Jupiter’s Highest-Energy Ions
Trapped ions discovered at midlatitudes can have energies exceeding 100 megaelectron volts per nucleon. Their detection adds to our understanding of the powerful radiation environment…
Holes in the Solar Atmosphere: Artificial Intelligence Spots Coronal Holes to Automate Space Weather Predictions
Scientists from the University of Graz (Austria), Skoltech and their colleagues from the US and Germany have developed a new neural network that can reliably…
NASA’s ACE Mission: Total Solar Eclipses Shine a Light on the Solar Wind
From traversing sand dunes in the Sahara Desert to keeping watch for polar bears in the Arctic, a group of solar scientists known as the…
Freak Coincidence: The Curious Incident of Swarm and Sprites in the Night-Time
We are all familiar with the bolts of lightning that accompany heavy storms. While these flashes originate in storm clouds and strike downwards, a much…
New Understanding of Invisible – But Mighty – Particles
Tiny charged electrons and protons which can damage satellites and alter the ozone have revealed some of their mysteries to University of Otago scientists. In…
At Last, Physicists Report Definitive Evidence of How Brilliant Auroras Are Created
The aurora borealis, or northern lights, that fill the sky in high-latitude regions have fascinated people for thousands of years. But how they’re created, while…
Which Way Does the Solar Wind Blow? Supercomputers Improve Space Weather Prediction
Using supercomputers, researchers develop new software for improved space weather prediction. The surface of the sun churns with energy and frequently ejects masses of highly-magnetized…
Science Made Simple: Earth’s Upper Atmosphere
The Earth’s atmosphere has four primary layers: the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, and thermosphere. These layers protect our planet by absorbing harmful radiation. Thermosphere 53–375 Miles…
Edge of Space: The Science of NASA’s AIM Spacecraft
Launched in 2007, the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere, or AIM, mission is the first detailed exploration of Earth’s unique and elusive clouds that…
KiNET-X Experiment: NASA Launches Rocket in Search of Aurora Answers
NASA launched one of its largest sounding rockets Sunday from an East Coast facility in an experiment led by a space physics professor from the…
New Method Invented for Predicting Solar Radio Flux Two Years Ahead
Scientists at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) and their colleagues from the University of Graz & the Kanzelhöhe Observatory (Austria) and the…
Extreme Space Weather Danger: Moon Mission Delays Could Increase Risks From Solar Storms
First study of timing of extreme space weather events reveals clear pattern. Planned missions to return humans to the Moon need to hurry up to…
Space Weather Puzzle Unlocked by Supercomputer Simulations
Scientists have long questioned why the bursts of hot gas from the Sun do not cool down as fast as expected, and now a UCL-led…
Diffuse Auroral Eraser: Physicists Discover a New Type of Aurora
The famed northern and southern lights have been studied for millennia, but they still hold secrets. In a new study, physicists led by the University…
Solar Orbiter Images First Coronal Mass Ejections – See the Stunning Videos From Multiple Instruments
Combining imagery from three of Solar Orbiter’s remote sensing instruments – the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI), the Metis coronagraph, and Solar Orbiter’s Heliospheric Imager (SoloHI)…
SHIELDS Up! NASA Rocket Launched to Survey Our Solar System’s Windshield
Eleven billion miles away – more than four times the distance from us to Pluto – lies the boundary of our solar system’s magnetic bubble,…
