Tag: sun

Stereo/3-D Images of The Sun.
It’s official: The sun is a sphere.

On Feb. 6th, NASA‘s twin STEREO probes moved into position on opposite sides of the sun, and they are now beaming back uninterrupted images of the entire star—front and back.

“For the first time ever, we can watch solar activity in its full 3-dimensional glory,” says Angelos Vourlidas, a member of the STEREO science team at the Naval Research Lab in Washington, DC.

“This is a big moment in solar physics,” says Vourlidas. “STEREO has revealed the sun as it really is–a sphere of hot plasma and intricately woven magnetic fields.”

Each STEREO probe photographs half of the star and beams the images to Earth. Researchers combine the two views to create a sphere. These aren’t just regular pictures, however. STEREO’s telescopes are tuned to four wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet radiation selected to trace key aspects of solar activity such as flares, tsunamis and magnetic filaments. Nothing escapes their attention.

› View larger
An artist’s concept of STEREO surrounding the sun. Credit: NASA”With data like these, we can fly around the sun to see what’s happening over the horizon—without ever leaving our desks,” says STEREO program scientist Lika Guhathakurta at NASA headquarters. “I expect great advances in theoretical solar physics and space weather forecasting.”

Consider the following: In the past, an active sunspot could emerge on the far side of the sun completely hidden from Earth. Then, the sun’s rotation could turn that region toward our planet, spitting flares and clouds of plasma, with little warning.

3-D image

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/news/entire-sun.html
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1 Mar 2011
Geomagnetic Storm,Why worry?
Too much of dependence has made Man tense for things that really do not count, for which he has become an addict.

Natural Phenomenon are there always.

We are aware them only now.

We might have many more things in the Universe that, in our limited view(which we do not accept), might be more dangerous than what we know.

Universe will go on despite our Knowledge of it.

Universe is indifferent to every thing,including us.

Why worry about things we can not control?

The Earth just dodged a solar bullet. But it won’t be the last. Experts say a geomagnetic storm, sparked by a massive solar eruption similar to the one that flared toward the Earth on Tuesday, is bound to strike again, and the next one could wreak more havoc than the world has ever seen.

Modern society is increasingly vulnerable to space weather because of our dependence on satellite systems for synchronizing computers, navigational systems, telecommunications networks and other electronic devices.

A potent solar storm could disrupt these technologies, scorch satellites, crash stock markets and cause months-long power outages, experts said Saturday at the American Association for the Advancement of Science‘s annual meeting.

The situation will only get more dire because the solar cycle is heading into a period of more intense activity in the coming 11 years.

http://news.discovery.com/space/solar-storm-technology-damage-110219.html#mkcpgn=rssnws1
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21 Feb 2011
Giant Solar Blast Headed for Earth.
The biggest solar blast in four years erupted late Monday, and it’s sending jets of charged particles right at Earth. The spray will spark bright auroras when it hits the magnetosphere in the next 24 to 48 hours.

A cluster of sunspots called Active Region 1158 unleashed the flare at 8:50 p.m. EST, Feb. 14 [1:50 a.m. UT, Feb. 15]. It was categorized as class X2.2, meaning it’s the most powerful flare since December 2006. The sunspots have continued to let loose smaller flares and may still be active now.

As Spaceweather.com notes, the sunspots didn’t even exist one week ago, and now cover a swatch of sun wider than Jupiter.

NOAA forecasters estimate a 45 percent chance of geomagnetic activity on Thursday, Feb. 17, when the bulk of the radiation hits Earth’s magnetic field. The December 2006 storm was powerful enough to disrupt GPS systems.

Should the new storm prove as powerful, it could be a preview of what’s expected this year and in 2012, as the sun reaches an expected maximum in its natural cycle of activity.

There is, however, a silver — and green, and yellow, and glowing — lining to the flares. In higher latitudes, where the sun’s ion spray is pulled by Earth’s magnetic poles, collisions between solar particles and atoms suspended in our magnetosphere produce photon sparks. Together these form the aurora borealis, or northern lights, and it looks like Earth is in for quite a show.

What’s more, though a full moon often outshines the auroras, this storm may be so powerful as to mix moonlight and northern lights in one spectacular swirl. So look up! And if you take pictures, send us your best shots. If we get enough, we’ll create a reader gallery.

http://current.com/1f0l14c
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17 Feb 2011
The Mystery Planet in our Solar system.
Tyche is very real now, however. 15,000 times farther from the Sun than Earth, Tyche would be made mostly of hydrogen and helium. The titanic planet would orbit the Sun with moons and rings around it, bubbling with clouds and storm systems similar to Jupiter. It would even have a mild temperature (-73ºC/-99.4ºF) compared to the asteroids around it, which are almost near absolute zero. Whitmire says that the temperature difference is because a titan of this size takes a long time to cool off after its formation.

http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/02/the-mystery-of-the-giant-planet-hidden-in-our-solar-system.php#more

There’s a giant planet right here, hiding in our Solar System. One that nobody has ever seen, even while it is four times larger than Jupiter and has rings and moons orbiting it. At least, that’s what two astrophysicists say.
The name of the planet is Tyche. The scientists are John Matese and Daniel Whitmire, from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. According to them, this colossus is hiding in the Oort Cloud–the asteroid beehive that forms the outer shell of our home system, one light-year in radius. They claim that data already captured byNASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorerproves its existence. It only needs to be analyzed… over the next two years.

Matese and Whitmire are convinced that Tyche is very real now, however. 15,000 times farther from the Sun than Earth, Tyche would be made mostly of hydrogen and helium. The titanic planet would orbit the Sun with moons and rings around it, bubbling with clouds and storm systems similar to Jupiter. It would even have a mild temperature (-73ºC/-99.4ºF) compared to the asteroids around it, which are almost near absolute zero. Whitmire says that the temperature difference is because a titan of this size takes a long time to cool off after its formation.

Would Tyche be the 9th planet of our Solar System, after Pluto’s demise? If its existence is finally confirmed, its Solar System planet status may not be guaranteed. The reason: Astronomers theorize that Tyche could be a planet born in another star system and captured by ours. But whatever classification it gets, it’s exciting to think that there may be a new neighbor just around the corner. [The Independent]

http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/02/the-mystery-of-the-giant-planet-hidden-in-our-solar-system.php#more
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15 Feb 2011
UFOs around the SUN- NASA Videos.
NASA 2010 Videos of UFOs.

http://current.com/15uvh4c
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11 Feb 2011