NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has eclipse seasons twice a year near each equinox. Earth passes directly between the Sun and produces a series of eclipses from the point of view of the spacecraft.The first eclipse of the SDO Spring 2013 Eclipse Season
2013 was supposed to be the year of Solar Max, the peak of the 11-year sunspot cycle yet now that it has arrived solar activity is relatively low. Sunspot numbers are well below their values in 2011, and strong solar flares have been infrequent for many months. There
On July 18, 2012, a fairly small explosion of light burst off the lower right limb of the sun. Such flares often come with an associated eruption of solar material, known as a coronal mass ejection or CME – but this one did not.Something interesting did happen,
Active Region 1654 has traveled half across the Earth facing side of the Sun and now is squarely facing Earth. On January 13, this huge sunspot reached its maximum size measured as more than 193 000 km (120, 000 miles) wide long or 15 Earth diameters) from end to
Kanzelhohe Solar Observatory in Austria recorded an interesting image of the Sun on January 12, 2013 at 07:57 UTC. Using Kanzelhoehe H-alpa filters to spot the active regions of the Sun, they captured a plane and contrail flying afront of the Sun as seen from the
NASA’s SDO recorded a beautiful solar prominence eruption just beyond the eastern limb on January 10,
Amateur astro-photographer Alan Friedman captures the sun and other stars with humble equipment, in an unlikely place, in a highly developed field. He discusses why he does it, and why it’s important for everyone to be a bit of a DIY upstart. In the spirit of ideas
A new report issued by the National Research Council (NRC), “The Effects of Solar Variability on Earth’s Climate,” lays out some of the surprisingly complex ways that solar activity can make itself felt on our planet.The luminosity of our own sun varies a 0.1% over
Before 1979, there were less than a dozen known sungrazing comets. As of December 2012, we know of 2,500. Why did this number increase? With solar observatories like SOHO, STEREO, and SDO, we have not only better means of viewing the sun, but also the comets that
STEREO spacecrafts are moving closer to the points in their orbits at which they will be directly opposite Earth on the other side of the Sun. Earth has been visible in the HI2 telescopes since launch, but this is the first time it’s been visible in either of the HI1
