Dancing With the Stars: Corridor Test of Proba-3’s Formation Flying Sensors
The longest corridor in ESA’s largest establishment was turned into a test site for one of the Agency’s most ambitious future missions, Proba-3. The two…
Sun
Chinese Solar Telescope Reveals Acceleration of Magnetic Reconnection From a Nearby Filament Eruption
Magnetic reconnection refers to the reconfiguration of magnetic field geometry. It plays an elemental role in the rapid release of magnetic energy and its conversion…
In First, Scientists Trace Dangerous Solar Energetic Particles to Their Roots on the Sun
Zipping through space at close to the speed of light, Solar Energetic Particles, or SEPs, are one of the main challenges for the future of…
Sounding Rocket CLASP2 Helps Create Unprecedented Map of the Solar Magnetic Field
Cooperative operations between a solar observation satellite and a sounding-rocket telescope have measured the magnetic field strength in the photosphere and chromosphere above an active…
Solar Activity Reconstructed Over a Millennium – Sun’s Eleven-Year Cycle Traced Back to the Year 969
An international team of researchers led by ETH Zurich has reconstructed solar activity back to the year 969 using measurements of radioactive carbon in tree…
Switchbacks Science: Explaining NASA’s Parker Solar Probe’s Mysterious Magnetic Puzzle
When NASA’s Parker Solar Probe sent back the first observations from its voyage to the Sun, scientists found signs of a wild ocean of currents…
Celestial Geometry Posed a Special Opportunity During Parker Solar Probe’s 7th Solar Encounter
During Parker Solar Probe’s seventh swing by the Sun, culminating in its closest solar approach, or perihelion, on January 17, 2021, celestial geometry posed a…
Astronomers Locate Source of Hazardous High-Energy Particles in the Sun
The source of potentially hazardous solar particles, released from the Sun at high speed during storms in its outer atmosphere, has been located for the…
Astrophysicist’s 2004 Theory Confirmed: Why the Sun’s Chemical Composition Varies
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…
NASA’s Unprecedented Map of Sun’s Magnetic Field – Including the Mysterious Chromosphere
For decades after its discovery, observers could only see the solar chromosphere for a few fleeting moments: during a total solar eclipse, when a bright…
Unprecedented Map of the Sun’s Magnetic Field Created by CLASP2 Space Experiment
Every day space telescopes provide spectacular images of the solar activity. However, their instruments are blind to its main driver: the magnetic field in the…
ESA’s Solar Orbiter Spacecraft Communications Disrupted by the Sun
What happens when the Solar System’s No. 1 source of violent energy interferes with spacecraft communication? Name? Solar Orbiter, or ‘Solo’ as the mission control…
Magnetic Waves Explain Mystery of Sun’s Puzzling Outer Layer
A theory as to why the Sun’s outer atmosphere differs in its chemical make-up from its inner layers has been confirmed by direct observation for…
A New View of Small Sun Structures Allows NASA to Explore the Solar Wind Like Never Before
Scientists have combined NASA data and cutting-edge image processing to gain new insight into the solar structures that create the Sun’s flow of high-speed solar…
U.S. Postal Service to Issue Sun Science Forever Stamps With 10 Spectacular Images From NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory
NASA’s images of the Sun’s dynamic and dazzling beauty have captivated the attention of millions. In 2021, the US Postal Service is showcasing the Sun’s…
Secrets Behind Sunquakes May Lurk Beneath the Solar Surface
A secret behind the workings of sunquakes – seismic activity on the Sun during solar flares – might be hidden beneath the solar surface. These…
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory Spots First Lunar Transit of 2021
On January 13, 2021, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, experienced its first lunar transit of the year when the Moon crossed its view of…
The Sun in 2020: 366 Daily Images by ESA’s Proba-2 Satellite
These 366 images of the Sun were made by ESA’s Proba-2 satellite in 2020. This satellite is continuously monitoring the changing activity of the Sun….