Latest Solar telescopes Stories

So great is the wealth of data about the Sun now being sent back by space missions such as SOHO, STEREO and the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) that scientists back on Earth can struggle to keep pace. To combat this data overload, scientists from the Visual Computer Centre at Bradford University are developing advanced imaging tools to help scientists visualize what's happening at the Sun, make sense of the data and predict the extreme solar activities that could affect our life here on...

The largest disturbances to the Earth's geomagnetic environment occur when it is buffeted by solar material hurled in our direction by explosive changes in the Sun's atmosphere. These Coronal Mass Ejections or CMEs contain approximately a billion tons of ionized gas or plasma and can have a dramatic and damaging impact on everything from satellites to power grids.Now a team of scientists have used two spacecraft to study these events in unprecedented detail. Graduate student Anthony Williams...

Researchers today provided the first computer model explaining the recent period of decreased solar activity during the Sun's 11-year cycle. This recent solar minimum was the deepest observed in about 100 years. The solar minimum has repercussions on the safety of space travel and the amount of orbital debris our planet accumulates. NASA said that scientists around the world were puzzled by the extended disappearances of sunspots in 2008 through 2009. "Plasma currents deep inside the sun...

Observers say that the Sun has unleashed its strongest flare in four years. The eruption was an X-flare, which is the strongest type of flare that can affect communications on Earth. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft recorded an intense flash of extreme ultraviolet radiation emanating from a sunspot. The British Geological Survey (BGS) issued a geomagnetic storm warning and said that observers might be able to see auroras from the northern U.K.The flare was recorded on...

Dr. Tony Phillips, NASA's Heliophysics News Team On Feb. 6th, NASA's twin STEREO probes moved into position on opposite sides of the sun, and they are now beaming back uninterrupted images of the entire star"”front and back."For the first time ever, we can watch solar activity in its full 3-dimensional glory," says Angelos Vourlidas, a member of the STEREO science team at the Naval Research Lab in Washington, DC."This is a big moment in solar physics," says Vourlidas....

Observations from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and the Japanese satellite Hinode show that some gas in the giant, fountain-like jets in the sun's atmosphere known as spicules can reach temperatures of millions of degrees. The finding offers a possible new framework for how the sun's high atmosphere gets so much hotter than the surface of the sun.What makes the high atmosphere, or corona, so hot "“ over a million degrees, compared to the sun surface's 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit --...

During a total eclipse of the Sun, skywatchers are awed by the shimmering corona -- a faint glow that surrounds the Sun like gossamer flower petals. This outer layer of the Sun's atmosphere is, paradoxically, hotter than the Sun's surface, but so tenuous that its light is overwhelmed by the much brighter solar disk. The corona becomes visible only when the Sun is blocked, which happens for just a few minutes during an eclipse.Now, an instrument on board NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory...

PALO ALTO, Calif., Dec. 13, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- A serendipitous alignment of high-powered spaceborne solar instruments-designed and built by Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT)-has finally provided the data allowing scientists to uncover the physical mechanism behind so-called "sympathetic flares" on the Sun. For over 75 years, solar physicists have been observing near-synchronous explosions in the solar atmosphere, and have wondered whether they were somehow related, but hard evidence for...

On December 2, 1995, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory or SOHO was launched into space from Cape Canaveral aboard an Atlas IIAS rocket. The joint ESA/NASA project began its work observing the sun at a time when the term "solar weather" was almost never used.Fifteen years later, SOHO has revolutionized what we know about the solar atmosphere and violent solar storms produced by the sun. SOHO has become an expert comet-hunter, nightly news leader and a workhorse that helped...

Want to build a pinhole camera to look at an eclipse? Or learn more about how gigantic telescopes examine the sun? The place to go on the Web is solarweek.org from October 18-22. Twice a year, Solar Week provides a weeklong series of web-based educational activities for classrooms about our magnetic variable star, the sun, and its interactions with Earth and the solar system.Each day of Solar Week offers a different set of lessons and games for students ranging from the upper elementary to...