magnetohydrodynamics tagged posts

Zeta Ophiuchi has had an interesting life. It began as a typical large star about twenty times more massive than the sun. It spent its days happily orbiting a large companion star until its companion exploded as a supernova about a million years ago. The explosion ejected Zeta Ophiuchi, so now it is speeding away through interstellar space. Of course, the supernova also expelled the outer layers of the companion star, so rather than empty space, our plucky star is speeding through the remnant gas as well. As they say on Facebook, it’s complicated. And that’s great news for astronomers, as a recent study shows.

Zeta Ophiuchi is most famous for be...

A visualization of the Sun’s three-dimensional magnetic field. By tracing magnetic field lines at extremely high resolution, researchers highlight the inherent complexity of the Sun’s magnetic field and its intimate connection to visible emission from the solar corona. Credit: TACC/Predictive Science, Inc

Scientists have forecast the corona of the sun with Stampede2 supercomputer at The University of Texas at Austin’s Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) during the upcoming eclipse. The findings shed light on what the eclipse of the sun might look like Aug. 21 when it will be visible across much of the US, tracing a 70-mile-wide band across 14 states...