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Solar News 2008
January 2007 December · November · October · September · August · July · June · May · April · March · February · More... December 14, 2007 
Is a New Solar Cycle Beginning? (NASA Feature) The solar physics community is abuzz this week. No, there haven't been any great eruptions or solar storms. The source of the excitement is a modest knot of magnetism that popped over the sun's eastern limb on Dec. 11th, pictured below in a pair of images from the orbiting Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). It may not look like much, but "this patch of magnetism could be a sign of the next solar cycle," says solar physicist David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center Image Credit: SOHO (ESA & NASA) December 6, 2007 
The Sun is Bristling with X-ray Jets (NASA Feature) Astronomers using Japan's Hinode spacecraft have discovered that the sun is bristling with powerful "X-ray jets." They spray out of the sun's surface hundreds of times a day, launching blobs of hot gas as wide as North America at a top speed of two million miles per hour. These jets add significant mass to the solar wind and they may help explain a long-standing mystery of astrophysics: the superheating of the sun's corona. Image Credits: JAXA |