For millennia, humans have viewed the northern and southern lights – aurora borealis and aurora australis – and created myths and folklore to explain the dancing lights they saw in the sky. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/legends-folklore-myths-northern-southern-lights-auroras…
Tag: solar storms
Watch: 25 years of the sun
This video, merging more than 2 decades of footage from SOHO cameras, captures thousands of sunspots, flares, and coronal mass ejections breaking out from the sun. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/sun-25-years-video-solar-flare-cme-sunspot…
Scientists predicted a large sunspot. Now it’s here
Last week, scientists from the National Solar Observatory predicted a large sunspot would emerge before Thanksgiving. Now the sunspot – AR2786 – is in view. Here’s how they did it. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/nso-predicts-large-sunspot-thanksgiving-nov2020…
Solar storms could be more extreme if they ‘slipstream’ behind each other
Modeling of an extreme space weather event that narrowly missed Earth in 2012 shows it could have been even worse if paired with another event. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-09-solar-storms-extreme-slipstream.html…
Maps of the sun’s corona could help us predict dangerous solar storms
The tenuous outermost layer of the sun, called the corona, is invisible most of the time, but its magnetic fields have been mapped for the first time Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2251150-maps-of-the-suns-corona-could-help-us-predict-dangerous-solar-storms/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
The sun is too quiet, which may mean dangerous solar storms in future
Stars that are similar to the sun in every way we can measure are mostly more active than the sun, which hints that the sun’s activity may ramp up someday, risking solar eruptions Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2242105-the-sun-is-too-quiet-which-may-mean-dangerous-solar-storms-in-future/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Solar storms may interfere with the ability of whales to navigate
Healthy grey whales are four times more likely to become stranded when solar activity produces lots of radio noise, suggesting solar storms may be blinding their ability to sense magnetic fields Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2234960-solar-storms-may-interfere-with-the-ability-of-whales-to-navigate/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Devastating solar storms could be far more common than we thought
Solar super-storms capable of damaging electric grids and satellite networks may be much more common than previously thought, a study of Earth’s oldest geomagnetic index suggests. Source: https://www.livescience.com/solar-super-storms-very-common.html
Liftoff! Solar Orbiter launches successfully
ESA’s sun-exploring Solar Orbiter will be the first spacecraft ever to fly over the sun’s poles. It’ll study the origin of the solar wind, which has the potential to affect earthly technologies. Source: https://earthsky.org/todays-image/solar-orbiter-successful-lift-off-feb-10-2020…
NASA to broadcast Sunday’s Solar Orbiter launch
Solar Orbiter – aka SolO – will take the first direct images of the sun’s poles. Following Sunday’s launch, the spacecraft will take a loopy path through the inner solar system, borrowing thrust from the powerful gravitational fields of Earth and Venus. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/nasa-to-broadcast-feb9-2020-solar-orbiter-launch…