Can you name the top 12 brightest objects in the solar system? How many have you seen without the aid of binoculars or a telescope? Source: https://earthsky.org/space/what-are-the-brightest-objects-in-our-solar-system…
Tag: sunspots
China’s Chang’e 5 moon craft on a new mission: the sun
China’s Chang’e 5 moon mission – which successfully returned moon rocks to Earth in December, 2020 for the first time in 44 years – is now headed toward the Earth-sun Lagrange point, for the goal of making sun observations. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/china-change-5-moon-mission-extended-to-l1-sun…
Check out these new Sun Science stamps!
The US Postal Service announced that they’ll be releasing a series of stamps highlighting images of the sun captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/new-sun-science-stamps-2021…
Coronal holes during the solar maximum
Sunspots were first seen by Galileo, and in the eighteenth century Rudolf Wolf concluded from his study of previous observations that there was a roughly eleven-year solar cycle of activity. In 1919 the astronomer George Ellery Hale found a new solar periodicity, the twenty-two year solar magnetic cycle which is composed of two eleven-year cycles and today is referred to as…
Is a solar flare the same thing as a CME?
Solar Cycle 25 is here, and that means – in the years ahead – more solar flares and more coronal mass ejections, or CMEs. People sometimes use the words interchangeably, but they’re not the same thing. Here’s the difference. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/is-a-solar-flare-the-same-thing-as-a-cme…
New sunspot cycle could be among strongest on record
A study of oppositely charged magnetic field bands, moving in the sun’s northern and southern hemispheres, suggests the coming sunspot cycle – Cycle 25 – will be a particularly strong one. This result contradicts an earlier expert forecast, suggesting a weak Cycle 25. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/sunspot-cycle-25-among-strongest-on-record-says-ncar…
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…
A Thanksgiving sun treat: Big sunspot rotates into view
A group of sunspots has emerged on the Earth-facing side of the sun, just in time for Thanksgiving. Source: https://www.livescience.com/thanksgiving-sun-sunspot-treat-2020.html
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…
National Solar Observatory predicts a large sunspot for Thanksgiving
On November 18 scientists from the US National Science Foundation’s National Solar Observatory predicted the arrival of a large sunspot just in time for Thanksgiving. Using a special technique called helioseismology, the team has been ‘listening’ to changing sound waves from the Sun’s interior which beckon the arrival of a large sunspot. Recent changes in these sound waves pointed to the…