Latest Corona Stories
Imagine forecasting a hurricane in Miami weeks before the storm was even a swirl of clouds off the coast of Africa—or predicting a tornado in Kansas from the flutter of a butterfly's wing(1) in Texas. These are the kind of forecasts meteorologists can only dream about. Could the dream come true? A new study by Stanford researchers suggests that such forecasts may one day be possible—not on Earth, but on the sun. "We have learned to detect sunspots before they are visible to...
WASHINGTON, Aug. 18, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA spacecraft observations and new data processing techniques are giving scientists better insight into the evolution and development of solar storms that can damage satellites, disrupt communications and cause power grid failures on Earth. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The solar storms, called Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), are being observed from NASA's twin Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or...
Using data collected by NASA's STEREO spacecraft, researchers at Southwest Research Institute and the National Solar Observatory have developed the first detailed images of solar wind structures as plasma and other particles from a coronal mass ejection (CME) traveled 93 million miles and impacted Earth.The images from a December 2008 CME event reveal an array of dynamic interactions as the solar wind, traveling at speeds up to a million miles per hour, shifts and changes on its three-day...
NASA said on Tuesday that the sun unleashed the biggest solar flare in four years. The NOAA GOES satellite measured an X6.9 flare on August 9, 2011 at 3:48 a.m. EDT The bursts of radiation cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to harm humans on the ground, but it can disrupt GPS and communications signal, according to NASA. "It was a big flare," Joe Kunches, a space scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Space Weather Prediction Center told CBS...
A new study sheds light on why the Sun's outer atmosphere, or corona, is more than 20 times hotter than its surface. The research, led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), may bring scientists a step closer to understanding the solar cycle and the Sun's impacts on Earth.The study uses satellite observations to reveal that magnetic oscillations carrying energy from the Sun's surface into its corona are far more vigorous than previously thought. These waves are energetic...
Those who study the sun face an unavoidable hurdle in their research "“ their observations must be done from afar. Relying on images and data collected from 90 million miles away, however, makes it tough to measure the invisible magnetic fields sweeping around the sun.Scientists must learn more about these fields because they are crucial to understanding how coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, travel through space -- sometimes toward Earth where they can damage satellites. Now NASA researchers...
By Dr. Tony Phillips - Science@NASAOn June 7, 2011, Earth-orbiting satellites detected a flash of X-rays coming from the western edge of the solar disk. Registering only "M" (for medium) on the Richter scale of solar flares, the blast at first appeared to be a run-of-the-mill eruption--that is, until researchers looked at the movies."We'd never seen anything like it," says Alex Young, a solar physicist at the Goddard Space Flight Center. "Half of the sun appeared to...
CHICAGO, June 23, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Modelo Especial, one of the fastest growing import beer brands, has teamed up with Sports Illustrated and international soccer star Clint Dempsey to invite fans to enter Modelo Especial's VIP Soccer Sweepstakes, which will award five grand prize winners a trip for two to attend an international soccer match of their choosing. From now until July 31st, fans 21 and older can go to stores to find Modelo Especial displays for information on how to enter to...
Scientists at George Mason University discovered that a phenomenon called a giant magnetic rope is the source for solar storms. The researchers made the discovery by using images from the NASA Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) spacecraft.Scientists had previously been unable to prove that the magnetic rope was the cause of solar storms. However, using images taken by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) telescope aboard the SDO, the team was able to pinpoint an area of the sun where a...
Since 1611, humans have recorded the comings and goings of black spots on the sun. The number of these sunspots waxes and wanes over approximately an 11-year cycle -- more sunspots generally mean more activity and eruptions on the sun and vice versa. The number of sunspots can change from cycle to cycle, and 2008 saw the longest and weakest solar minimum since scientists have been monitoring the sun with space-based instruments.Observations have shown, however, that magnetic effects on Earth...
Latest Corona Reference Libraries
Corona -- The corona is the luminous "atmosphere" of the Sun extending millions of kilometers into space, most easily seen during a total solar eclipse. An interesting feature of the corona is the fact that it is much hotter than the visible "surface" of the Sun; the photosphere is approximately 6000°C compared to the corona at over one million °C. The corona is much less dense than the photosphere, however, and so produces less light. The exact mechanism by which the corona is...
Solar Prominence -- Solar prominences are large arch-shaped structures observable in the solar corona. These often have a twist and occasionally become unstable, ejecting plasma and magnetic flux out from the sun. The physics of solar prominence instability is believed to be governed by magnetic forces and magnetic helicity issues. It is thought that instability occurs when a magnetic flux tube becomes excessively twisted. ----- Click here to learn more on this topic from eLibrary:
Solar Flare -- A solar flare is a violent eruption that explodes from a star's photosphere with energies equivalent to tens of millions of hydrogen bombs. Solar flares from the Sun send out a streams of highly energetic solar wind that can present a radiation hazard to spacecraft outside of planetary magnetospheres and can disrupt radio signals on Earth. Solar flares were first observed on the Sun in 1859 by English astronomer Richard Carrington. They have also been observed to...
The Sun -- intensely hot, self-luminous body of gases at the center of the solar system. Its gravitational attraction maintains the planets, comets, and other bodies of the solar system in their orbits. The sun is actually a star of about medium size; it appears larger than the other stars because of its relative nearness to the earth. The earth's distance from the sun varies from 91,377,000 mi (147,053,000 km) at perihelion to 94,537,000 mi (152,138,000 km) at aphelion (see apsis). The...
