The Solar Orbiter just completed its commissioning phase while en route to the Sun. It has already provided valuable looks at solar campfires and Venus’s magnetic fields, and it promises much more.
solar activity
Posted inNews
When Betelgeuse Won’t Explode, You Need a Big Telescope to Prove It
Thanks to last-minute telescope time, researchers pieced together the sequence of events that caused Betelgeuse’s Great Dimming last year.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Severe Radiation Storms Pose Health Risk to Air Travel
Simulations of radiation storm fluxes on real flight paths highlight how severe space weather could expose aircrew and passengers on busy transatlantic routes to significant radiation doses.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Using Earth’s Atmosphere as a Solar Flare Monitor
Measurements of very-low frequency radio signal phase and amplitude can detect upper atmosphere changes caused by solar flares, enabling us to monitor flare occurrence and intensity.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Observational Data Validate Models of Sun’s Influence on Earth
Using a combination of independent models and observations over multiple timescales, scientists verify two important models that gauge the amount of solar radiation Earth receives.
Posted inEditors' Vox
Hearing the Sun Tock
The appearance of sunspots—their number, duration, and location—suggests that the dynamics of the Sun’s outer layer is synchronized with an internal clock.
Posted inNews
Moon Sheds Light on Early Solar Spin
Lunar samples reveal that the Sun spun relatively slowly in its first billion years and blasted the Earth and Moon with coronal mass ejections.
Posted inNews
Planetary Low Tide May Force Regular Sunspot Sync Ups
A regular alignment of the planets—no, it’s not pseudoscience—makes a strong enough tug to regulate the Sun’s 11- and 22-year cycles.
Posted inNews
Edward L. Chupp (1927–2017)
This pioneer in high-energy solar physics devised instruments for observing solar and cosmic ray emissions with which he detected, for the first time, nuclear gamma rays from solar flares.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
A Survey of Solar Radio Burst Statistics
National solar radio archive records have substantial missing data potentially affecting the ability to benchmark extreme solar events.