Latest Space plasmas Stories
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online The sun is revving up and preparing for a new cycle next year, reaching solar maximum during the summer and fall months of 2013. Our star goes through 11-year cycles, roughly. Some cycles can last as long as 14 years or as brief as nine. Despite what the cycle's name suggest, solar storms could be mild during a solar maximum, or severe during a minimum. The sun's cycle is marked from minimum to minimum, making the maximum mark...
[ Watch the Video: Measuring Space Tubulence ] April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online We all know that turbulence exists on Earth, but does it really exist in outer space? And if it does, how would you prove it? A research team from University of Iowa (UI) and the University of California, Los Angeles reports that they have directly measured space wind for the first time in a laboratory. “Turbulence is not restricted to environments here on Earth, but also arises...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online NASA said on Monday that our planet has entered a stream of high-speed solar wind that "escaped" through a coronal hole on the Sun. The solar wind that Earth is passing through has forecasters from the NOAA estimating a slight 20 percent chance of geomagnetic storms, but NASA says that high-latitude residents could benefit from the event. Sky watchers may want to step out into their backyards for the next few nights to catch...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online University of Chicago researchers wrote in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters that they found the radioactive isotope iron 60 low in abundance, and well mixed in solar system material, leading to the notion that the force of an exploding star prompted the formation of the Solar System. Scientists look for remnants of stellar explosions in meteorites to help determine the conditions under which the solar system...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Scientists are paving the way for future X-ray astrophysics research by explaining why observations from orbiting X-ray telescopes do not match theoretical predictions. The team used powerful X-rays from the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to study and measure a key process at work in extreme plasmas like those found in stars, black holes and...
NASA In December, a NASA mission to study the sun will make its third launch into space for a six-minute flight to gather information about the way material roils through the sun's atmosphere, sometimes causing eruptions and ejections that travel as far as Earth. The launch of the EUNIS mission, short for Extreme Ultraviolet Normal Incidence Spectrograph, is scheduled for Dec. 15, 2012, from White Sands, N.M. aboard a Black Brant IX rocket. During its journey, EUNIS will gather a new...
NASA When the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) launched on Dec. 2, 1995, it provided some of the first high-resolution observations of the sun unobscured by Earth's own atmosphere. A joint ESA/NASA mission, SOHO has helped revolutionize our understanding of the sun's interior and complex atmosphere -- home to a variety of giant explosions, including eruptions of solar material known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Indeed, before SOHO there was disagreement over what a CME headed...
WASHINGTON, Dec. 3, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has entered a new region at the far reaches of our solar system that scientists feel is the final area the spacecraft has to cross before reaching interstellar space. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Scientists refer to this new region as a magnetic highway for charged particles because our sun's magnetic field lines are connected to interstellar magnetic field lines. This...
[ Watch the Video ] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online NASA announced at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco on Monday that its Voyager 1 spacecraft has reached a region of space no other spacecraft has reached before. After 35 years, the Voyager 1 spacecraft has reached a new region of deep space known as a magnetic highway for charged particles. In this region, our sun's magnetic field lines are connected to interstellar magnetic field lines....
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Space-weather researchers joined forces to design and build NORUSCA II in order to help expand the understanding of auroras and other atmospheric events. NORUSCA II is a new camera with the capabilities of simultaneously imaging multiple spectral bands. The camera was tested at the Kjell Henriksen Observatory (KHO) in Svalbard, Norway. The camera produced the first-ever hyper spectral images of auroras and may have already...
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...
