Latest Space plasmas Stories
NASA The M6.5 flare on the morning of April 11, 2013, was also associated with an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection (CME), another solar phenomenon that can send billions of tons of solar particles into space and can reach Earth one to three days later. CMEs can affect electronic systems in satellites and on the ground. Experimental NASA research models show that the CME began at 3:36 a.m. EDT on April 11, leaving the sun at over 600 miles per second. Earth-directed CMEs can cause a...
WATCH VIDEO: [NASA | MAVEN Magnetometer] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online NASA's MAVEN spacecraft is scheduled for launch later this year, and with it will launch an instrument designed to study Mars' magnetic field. The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission will be carrying a sensitive magnetic-field instrument that will help investigate what remains of Mars' magnetic "shield." This Maven magnetometer will be playing a key role in studying the...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft may have allegedly left the confines of our solar System after 35 years and more than 11 billion miles of traveling through space. Scientists writing in the Geophysical Research Letters claim that they measured drastic changes in radiation levels on August 25, 2012 while the spacecraft was sitting over 11 billion miles away from the Sun. The anomalous cosmic rays (those trapped in the outer heliosphere)...
On March 17, 2013, MESSENGER successfully completed its year-long first extended mission in orbit about Mercury, building on the groundbreaking scientific results from its earlier primary mission. Today the team is poised to embark on a second extended mission that promises to provide new observations of Mercury's surface and interior at unprecedented spatial resolution and of the planet's dynamic magnetosphere and exosphere at high time resolution during the peak and declining phase of the...
Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A powerful solar eruption occurred on the surface of the sun at 2:54 a.m. (EDT) this morning. The eruption, called a coronal mass ejection (CME), occurred on the Earth-facing side of the sun and may have released billions of tons of solar particles into space racing their way toward Earth, potentially making impact within three days. Once particles from this CME event hit Earth, electrical systems in orbit, in the sky and on...
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Earlier this week the sun twice ejected large amounts of solar material during two coronal mass ejections (CMEs) in a 12-hour period, according to a NASA report. The CMEs are not expected to significantly impact Earth. The first CME began at 8:36 p.m. EDT on March 12, 2013. The solar material was directed toward three NASA spacecraft, Spitzer, Kepler and Epoxi. Two of the crafts, Spitzer and Kepler, are in an Earth-like orbit around...
NASA Science Using data from an aging NASA spacecraft, researchers have found signs of an energy source in the solar wind that has caught the attention of fusion researchers. NASA will be able to test the theory later this decade when it sends a new probe into the sun for a closer look. The discovery was made by a group of astronomers trying to solve a decades-old mystery: What heats and accelerates the solar wind? The solar wind is a hot and fast flow of magnetized gas that streams...
redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online While 2013 is supposed to be the year of Solar Max - the peak of the 11-year sunspot cycle - the relatively low solar activity recorded thus far has led experts to conclude that an unusual phenomenon has occurred. This most recent solar cycle has had not one but two peaks. According to NASA, sunspot numbers during the months of January and February 2013 were well below values recorded back in 2011. Furthermore, they report that...
U.S. Naval Research Laboratory U.S. Naval Research Laboratory research physicists and engineers from the Plasma Physics Division, working at the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) transmitter facility, Gakona, Alaska, successfully produced a sustained high density plasma cloud in Earth's upper atmosphere. "Previous artificial plasma density clouds have lifetimes of only ten minutes or less," said Paul Bernhardt, Ph.D., NRL Space Use and Plasma Section. "This higher...
Pioneering scientists redefine what influences movement in solar system and invite scientists, theorists and solar system experts to comment on the "More than Gravity" thesis LANCASTER, N.Y., Feb. 26, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- A new theory on the forces that control planetary orbit refutes the 400-year old assumptions currently held by the scientific community. Scientific and engineering experts Gerhard and Kevin Neumaier have established a relationship between solar winds and a quantized...
Latest Space plasmas Reference Libraries
Solar cycles: what are they and why should we care about them? Solar cycles are made up of what are known as solar minimums (min) and solar maximums (max). We refer to a solar min at the time when the sun is not active with many sunspots, while a solar max is just the opposite when we see a large increase in sunspot activity. So how long do solar cycles last? Typically they run on what is known as an 11 year cycle from the max to the min and then start over again anew. As of 2012 we...
Solar Physics is a journal for solar and solar-stellar research and the study of solar terrestrial physics. Founded in 1967 by solar physicist Cornelis de Jager and publisher D. Reidel, the journal treats all aspects of solar physics, ranging from the internal structure of the Sun and its evolution, to outer corona and solar wind in interplanetary space. Solar Physics has four more than forty years been the principal journal for publications of fundamental research on the Sun. It is...
A Radio Atmospheric signal (sometimes referred to as Sferic or Spheric), is a broadband electromagnetic impulse that occurs during atmospheric lightning discharges. Sferics spread out from the lightning source and can be received thousands of miles away. A sferic, depending on atmospheric conditions, may extend anywhere from a few kHz to several tens of kHz. Sferics from far reaching storms, over 1500 miles away, are generally offset in frequency range and may be picked up as tweeks. A...
Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén (May 30, 1908 - April 2, 1995) was a Swedish plasma physicist born in Norrköping, Sweden. Alfvén received his PhD from the University of Uppsala in 1934. His thesis was titled "Investigations of the Ultra-short Electromagnetic Waves." He was originally trained as an electrical power engineer and later moved on to research and teaching in the fields of plasma physics. Alfvén made many contributions to plasma physics, including theories describing the...
Ring Current -- A ring current is an electric current carried by charged particles trapped in a planet's magnetosphere. It is caused by the longitudinal drift of energetic (10-200 keV) particles. Earth's Ring Current Earth's ring current is responsible for geomagnetic storms. The ring current system consists of a band, at a distance of 3-5 RE(1), which lies in the equatorial plane and circulates clockwise around the Earth (when viewed from the north). The particles of this region...
![Hinode\](/media/gallery/iris-interface-region-imaging-spectrograph/thumbs/thumbs_751917main_highres4_full.jpg "Hinode\")
