| Solar News August 20, 2010 Multiple Solar Events Captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory August 1, 2010 was a day on which just about everything happened on the Sun that scientists were hoping to observe some day. It all happened to be connected, which made it a day for which SDO was designed: multiple flares, filament eruptions, long-distance interactions all over the Sun, and strong thermal variations. Check out these summary movies: 4 Image variety of wavelengths. Top left are relatively cool coronal temperatures, bottom left are the ones sensitive to higher temperatures, top right is the chromospheric He II 304A and bottom right the low-coronal temperature plasma in 171A. Detail A and Detail B show the two left-hand three-color composites in more detail. Shows a different combination of channels, with the chromosphere in red and the 1-2 million degree corona in green-blue. News source: Karel Schrijver, LMSAL July 21, 2010 Dark Matter May Be Lurking at the Heart of the Sun Dark matter is thought to make up about 80 percent of all matter in the universe. Dark matter is expected to form a halo around our galaxy, and since the Sun is in motion around the galaxy, some of the dark matter particles may collide with the elements in the Sun and become gravitationally captured by the Sun. This could lead to a build up of dark matter particles at the center of the Sun, according to new research. ews source: sciencedaily.com July 16, 2010 Space Weather Turns into an International Problem Representatives from more than 25 of the world's most technologically-advanced nations have gathered in Germany today to hear about a problem that may be too big for any one country to handle alone: solar storms. News source: science.nasa.gov July 15, 2010 A Puzzling Collapse of Earth's Thermosphere The thermosphere is a layer of the Earth's upper atmosphere ranging in altitude from 90 km to 600+ km. This is where much of the solar ultraviolet radiation is absorbed, causing ionization. It is also where auroras occur, and where most spacecraft orbit the Earth. During the deep solar minimum of 2008-09, there was a sharper-than-expected collapse of Earth's thermosphere. The thermosphere always cools and contracts when solar activity is low. In this case, however, the magnitude of the collapse was two to three times greater than low solar activity alone could explain. News source: science.nasa.gov July 9, 2010 
South Pacific Eclipse On Sunday, July 11th, the new Moon will pass directly in front of the Sun, producing a total eclipse over the South Pacific. The path of totality stretches across more than a thousand miles of ocean, making landfall in the Cook Islands at around 17:00 Universal Time (07:00 local time), then passing over Easter Island, a number of French Polynesian atolls, and the southern tip of South America. The path of totality ends just after reaching southern Chile and Argentina. The Moon's penumbral shadow produces a partial eclipse visible from a much larger region covering the South Pacific and southern South America. News source:eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov, science.nasa.gov July 1 , 2010 NASA Retires TRACE Spacecraft After Highly Successful Mission After a successful 12-year mission, NASA's Transition Region And Coronal Explorer (TRACE) conducted its final observations of the Sun on June 21. News source:science.nasa.gov June 21, 2010  Aurora Australis Observed from the International Space Station This striking aurora image was taken on May 29, 2010 during a geomagnetic storm that was most likely caused by a coronal mass ejection from the Sun on May 24. The ISS was located over the Southern Indian Ocean at an altitude of 350 kilometers (220 miles) when the image was taken.
Image Credit: ISS/NASA June 14, 2010  GOES-15 Solar X-Ray Imager's Miraculous First Light GOES-15 launched on March 4, 2010 from Cape Canaveral, Fla. On June 3, the GOES-15 Solar X-Ray Imager (SXI) instrument came on-line. Scientists and engineers had subjected SXI to a series of long duration tests and now believe to have full instrument functionality. Several test solar images have been subsequently taken successfully.
Image Credit: NASA/NOAA/LockheedMartin June 4, 2010  As the Sun Awakens, NASA Keeps a Wary Eye on Space Weather The Sun is slowly becoming more active, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity. At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms. A century-class solar storm could cause enormous economic damage by shutting down power grids, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications. A major goal of studying solar activity is to enable us to predict, prepare for, and mitigate potentially devastating space weather events.
Image Credit: NASA. May 29, 2010 Aurora Surprise On May 29th, the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) tilted south and opened a crack in Earth's magnetosphere. Solar wind poured in and fueled a G1-class geomagnetic storm. Northern Lights were sighted as far south as Wisconsin.
May 18, 2010  Engineers Diagnosing Voyager 2 Data System
Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 space probes were launched
in 1977,
and their original goals were to explore Jupiter and
Saturn.
They are still returning data 33 years later, on
their journey
out of the solar system. The two spacecraft are now
the most
distant human-made objects, out at the edge of the
heliosphere, the bubble the Sun creates around the
solar
system. Voyager 1 is expected to leave our solar
system and
enter interstellar space in the next five years or
so, and
Voyager 2 is to enter interstellar space shortly
afterward.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. April 27, 2010  SDO Observes Massive Solar Eruption On April 19th, NASA's new Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft has recorded one of the largest solar eruptions in recent years. The movie also shows 'coronal rain' - erupted streams of plasma falling back to the surface of the Sun, making bright splashes where they hit the surface.
Image Credit: SDO/AIA. April 21, 2010  First Light for the Solar Dynamics Observatory SDO is the first mission of NASA's Living with a Star (LWS) program. Its goal is to help us understand the Sun as a magnetic variable star and to measure its impact on life and society on Earth. Launched on February 11th from Cape Canaveral, the observatory has spent the past two months moving into a geosynchronous orbit and activating its instruments. As soon as SDO's telescope doors opened, the spacecraft began beaming back scenes so beautiful and puzzlingly complex that even seasoned observers were stunned.
Image Credit: NASA. April 13, 2010 ACE and STEREO Data Build Space Weather Forecasting System Despite the current solar minium, high pressure pulses of solar wind have been keeping the space weather unpredictable. To date, predictions when these pulses will arrive at planets have been flawed, in that observations of the features close to the Sun underestimate the speed that they are moving by the time they cross Earth's orbit. Using in-situ measurements from the ACE and STEREO satellites, scientists were able to provide more accurate estimates of when blasts of solar wind will reach Earth, Venus and Mars. News source:sciencedaily.com April 7, 2010 Early Earth May Have Absorbed More Sunlight Researchers have long wondered why water on Earth was not frozen during the early days of the planet, when the Sun emanated only 70 to 75 percent as much energy as it does today. Some theorize that high levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the same mechanism cited in global warming today, were key. But new research involving Stanford scientists has a different explanation: The oceans, much larger than today, absorbed enough heat from the sun to avoid turning into ice. News source: news.stanford.edu March 12, 2010 The Solar 'Conveyor Belt' Speeds Up The Great Conveyor Belt is a massive circulating current of hot plasma within the Sun. It has two branches, north and south, each taking about 40 years to complete one circuit. Data from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft show that the top of the Conveyor Belt has been running at record-high speeds for the past five years. Researchers believe the turning of the belt controls the sunspot cycle, and the increase in speed could explain the unusually deep solar minimum. News source: science.nasa.gov February 23, 2010 The ISWA Space Weather Science Tool ISWA is NASA's new web-based space weather analysis system that combines forecasts based on space weather models and concurrent space environment information. The intention is to provide a comprehensive interface for general space weather-related information, with data on past and current space weather events. Science and space enthusiasts can use the data, models, and tools of the iSWA system, and hopefully find it a useful resource for learning about different aspects of space weather. Sources: sciencedaily.com, iswa.gsfc.nasa.gov February 17, 2010 Listening to the Rhythm of the Sun Turbulence in the outer (convective) layers of the Sun produces changes in the gas and creates sound waves. These waves remain inside the star and cause it to resonate like a musical instrument. Helioseismology is the study of these solar wave oscillations. The "signature" of sound waves as they travel through a particular type of material is unique, and it changes as the material changes. Helioseismology works in a similar way: the way that waves travel through the interior of the Sun tells us about its structure. News source: sciencedaily.com February 17, 2010 3D Sun for the iPhone Imagine holding the entire Sun in the palm of your hand. Now you can. A new app developed by NASA-supported programmers delivers a live global view of the sun directly to your iPhone or iPod Touch. News source: science.nasa.gov February 11, 2010  Solar Dynamics Observatory launched! The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) was launched from Cape Canaveral at 10:23 a.m. EST on Feb. 11. The spacecraft is in good shape midway through the launch phase that will eventually place it into orbit reaching more than 21,000 miles. SDO is designed to study the causes of solar variability to help us better understand its impacts on Earth. SDO's three onboard telescopes will observe changes in the extreme ultraviolet irradiance, monitor the magnetic field and Doppler shifts over the entire visible disk, and make high-resolution images of the chromosphere and inner solar corona. SDO will help scientists to study the Sun's influence on Earth and near-Earth space. Visit our SDO Page for more information Image Credit: NASA. News source: science.nasa.gov |