On February 11th, 2010, NASA launched a new spacecraft called the Solar Dynamics Observatory [SDO], which was designed to give more knowledge and clearer images of the Sun than any other spacecraft that has been launched before for this purpose. On April 21st, 2010, the scientists of NASA ...
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 strong. An image from NASA’s Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS, mission ...
This isn’t the first time that we’ve gotten a good look at a solar flare. Plenty of astrophotographers have managed to snap some great images andvideos of the Sunthrowing a tantrum. And, with so many spacecraft and observatories focused on the Sun, NASA is able to capture some fantast...
However, such images are rare because the Sun appears much closer to Earth from a great distance, increasing the risk of damaging space camera sensors. Nonetheless, the Cassini spacecraft captured this stunning image when the Sun was behind Saturn. Cassini is a joint project of NASA and ESA s...
(Image credit: NASA) Stars like our sun form when a huge cloud of gas (mostly hydrogen and helium) grows so large that it collapses under its own weight. The pressure is so high in the center of that collapsing mass of gas that the heat reaches unimaginable levels, with temperatures so...
NASA's Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) satellites have provided the first three-dimensional images of the Sun in this space wallpaper.
The images show the corona, the outermost part of the Sun’s atmosphere, teeming with thousands of miniature solar flares, which the scientists have dubbed ‘campfires.’ These fires are millions of times smaller than the flares we can see from Earth, which are eruptions thought to be caused...
One 'active region' on the Sun, named AR2975, has been attracting attention. AR 2975 and AR 2976 stand out on the surface of the Sun, in this image captured on March 30, 2022, by the Solar Dynamics Observatory. Credit: NASA This tangle of magnetic...
One 'active region' on the Sun, named AR2975, has been attracting attention. AR 2975 and AR 2976 stand out on the surface of the Sun, in this image captured on March 30, 2022, by the Solar Dynamics Observatory. Credit: NASA This tangle of magnetic fields and s...
(Image credit: Solar Dynamics Observatory, NASA) Don't be alarmed, but the sun is constantly exploding. While violent nuclear fusion reactions power the sun's 27-million-degree-Fahrenheit (15 million degrees Celsius) core, towers of molten plasma, crackling radiation and electromagnetic energy ri...