The Sun belted out strong solar flares two days in a row, as activity ramps up toward the next Solar Maximum, predicted for mid-2025. On Saturday, February 11, a flare classified as X1.1 erupted from the Sun, while just a day before a different region on the Sun blasted out a X1.0...
Introduction Physical properties Internal structure Solar atmosphere Solar activity History of observation References & Edit HistoryRelated Topics Images, Videos & Interactives For Students Sun summary Quizzes Astronomy and Space Quiz Space Odyssey
Because the Sun is made of plasma, it’s also highly magnetic. It has north and south magnetic poles like the Earth, and the magnetic field lines create the activity we see on the surface. The darker sunspots – cooler areas which last for a few months and vary greatly in size – are...
despite much higher solar activity levels in general. (There have been some large flares observed behindthe sun, that have been unable to be definitively
NASA Earth Observatory. "Blue Marble: Next Generation" [Public Domain] (https://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_cat.php?categoryID=1484) Libraries used: Time4A [Apache License 2.0] (http://github.com/MenoData/Time4A) ca.rmen.sunrisesunset [LGPL-2.1] (http://github.com/caarmen/SunriseSunset...
One particularly interesting observation, Fisher said, showsthe evolution of an active region of the sun, also known as a sunspot. The darkspots on the sun's surface are connected to intense magnetic activity. SDOcaught this sunspot in decline that didn't look quite how scientists expectedit ...
NASA’s SDO includes numerous imagers, each with specialized filters to help study specific parts of the Sun’s activity. On the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA), four telescopes help the SDO get very close to the Sun’s surface. The AIA can see details as small as 725 kilometers (450...
The title of my thesis, “Stellar Magnetic Activity: Complementing Conclusions based on Solar and Stellar Observations,” formed the theme of much of my career. Behind me are my paranymphs (ceremonial assistants): (left) René Rutten with whom I worked closely throughout our Ph.D. phases and...
At the center of this image (left) from NASA’s High Resolution Coronal Imager sounding rocket is a small-scale, patchy structure on the Sun that solar physicists call “moss.” It forms low in the solar atmosphere around the center of sunspot groups on the Sun where magnetic activity is ...