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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Newest Solar Telescope produces First Images

    February 1, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Cell-like structures on the surface of the sun
    The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope has produced the highest resolution image of the sun’s surface ever taken. In this picture, taken at 789 nanometers (nm), we can see features as small as 30km (18 miles) in size for the first time ever. The image shows a pattern of turbulent, “boiling” gas that covers the entire sun. The cell-like structures — each about the size of Texas — are the signature of violent motions that transport heat from the inside of the sun to its surface. Hot solar material (plasma) rises in the bright centers of “cells,” cools off and then sinks below the surface in dark lanes in a process known as convection. In these dark lanes we can also see the tiny, bright markers of magnetic fields...
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    Citizen Science discovers a new form of the Northern Lights

    February 1, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Dune-shaped auroral emissions
    Very rarely, a gravity wave rising up in the atmosphere can be filtered and bent to travel between the mesopause and an inversion layer intermittently formed below the mesopause. The mesopause and the inversion layer are colder than the other layers of the atmosphere. In the wave channel established between these two layers, gravity waves coming from below can travel long distances without subsiding. Dune-shaped auroral emissions are created when solar wind charges the oxygen atoms surging through the channel. (Graphic credit: Jani Närhi)

    Working together with space researchers, Finnish amateur photographers have discovered a new auroral form...

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    Space Super-storm likelihood estimated from longest period of Magnetic field observations

    January 31, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Artist’s depiction of solar wind particles interacting with Earth’s magnetosphere

    A ‘great’ space weather super-storm large enough to cause significant disruption to our electronic and networked systems occurred on average once in every 25 years according to a new joint study by the University of Warwick and the British Antarctic Survey.

    By analysing magnetic field records at opposite ends of the Earth (UK and Australia), scientists have been able to detect super-storms going back over the last 150 years.

    This result was made possible by a new way of analysing historical data, pioneered by the University of Warwick, from the last 14 solar cycles, way before the space age began in 1957, instead of the last five solar cycles currently used.

    The analysis shows that ‘severe’ magn...

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    In a rare sighting, astronomers observe Burst of Activity as a Massive Star Forms

    January 29, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This artist’s impression shows the blast from a heatwave detected in a massive, forming star. Credit: Katharina Immer/JIVE

    Here on Earth, we pay quite a lot of attention to the sun. It’s visible to us, after all, and central to our lives. But it is only one of the billions of stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way. It’s also quite small compared to other stars—many are at least eight times more massive.

    These massive stars influence the structure, shape and chemical content of a galaxy. And when they have exhausted their hydrogen gas fuel and die, they do so in an explosive event called a supernova. This explosion is sometimes so strong that it triggers the formation of new stars out of materials in the dead star’s surroundings.

    But there’s an important gap in our knowledge: as...

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