Latest Solar telescopes Stories

NASA and the European Space Agency have selected 10 proposals for science instruments to fly aboard a spacecraft that will study the sun from a unique vantage point in space.The European-led mission, called the Solar Orbiter, will be positioned about one-fourth the distance Earth is from the sun. The location ultimately will enhance the ability for scientists worldwide to forecast space weather.Space weather can produce electromagnetic fields on Earth that induce extreme currents in wires,...

WASHINGTON, March 20 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA and the European Space Agency have selected 10 proposals for science instruments to fly aboard a spacecraft that will study the sun from a unique vantage point in space. (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO ) The European-led mission, called the Solar Orbiter, will be positioned about one-fourth the distance Earth is from the sun. The location ultimately will enhance the ability for scientists worldwide to...

NASA has selected three teams to design and build science instruments for a proposed European-led solar mission. The instruments, with a total value of approximately $81 million, are part of NASA's Living with a Star Program.The total amount for initial design of the instruments, known as Phase A, is $1.7 million. Each project will need to go through the normal key decision point phases in order to be confirmed for continued funding.The science teams selected are:* Russell Howard, principal...

Astronomers who count sunspots have announced that 2008 is now the "blankest year" of the Space Age.As of Sept. 27, 2008, the sun had been blank, i.e., had no visible sunspots, on 200 days of the year. To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go back to 1954, three years before the launch of Sputnik, when the sun was blank 241 times."Sunspot counts are at a 50-year low," says solar physicist David Hathaway of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. "We're...

What if you woke up one morning and found your whole planet had been swallowed by the atmosphere of a star?Get out of bed, look out the window. Auroras are dancing along the horizon. Dark sunspots crackle overhead"”each little 'pop' more powerful than a nuclear bomb. On TV, a weather forecaster warns astronauts, "a solar flare is sure to erupt," although he can't say exactly when. Moments later, the satellite signal begins to flicker.Where is this place?Welcome to planet...

The sun has been laying low for the past couple of years, producing no sunspots and giving a break to satellites.That's good news for people who scramble when space weather interferes with their technology, but it became a point of discussion for the scientists who attended an international solar conference at Montana State University. Approximately 100 scientists from Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa and North America gathered June 1-6 to talk about "Solar Variability, Earth's...

On April 9, the Sun erupted and blasted a bubble of hot, ionized gas into the solar system. The eruption was observed in unprecedented detail by a fleet of spacecraft, revealing new features that are predicted by computer models but difficult to see in practice.The observations are being discussed today in a press briefing at the American Geophysical Union Joint Assembly in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.Such eruptions, called coronal mass ejections or CMEs, happen periodically and pose a potential...

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory is sending a spacecraft closer to the sun than any probe has ever gone "“ and what it finds could revolutionize what we know about our star and the solar wind that influences everything in our solar system.NASA has tapped APL to develop the ambitious Solar Probe mission, which will study the streams of charged particles the sun hurls into space from a vantage point within the sun's corona "“ its outer atmosphere "“ where the...

NASA scientists say a new solar cycle is beginning, and this could have important repercussions for space-based technology ranging from GPS navigation to weather satellites.On January 4, a reversed-polarity sunspot appeared, signaling the start of Solar Cycle 24. A sunspot is an area of magnetic activity on the surface of the sun that appears as a dark spot on its surface. Solar activity waxes and wanes in 11-year cycles and the previous solar cycle, Solar Cycle 23, peaked in 2000-2002 with...

Groundwork laid for next generation of space flightsNSF -- In a landmark test flight, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., and a team of research partners this month successfully launched a solar telescope to an altitude of 120,000 feet, borne by a balloon larger than a Boeing 747 jumbo jet.The test clears the way for long-duration polar balloon flights beginning in 2009 that will capture unprecedented details of the Sun's surface."This unique research...