sun

Spacecraft Voyager 1, completes 35 years in space Wed, 05/09/2012 - 15:53 by Minnie Mahendru A victory in itself! Voyager 1, the workhorse spacecraft, continues to shine surrounded by stars even after 35 long years, far away, from Mother Earth. Astronomers wait in anticipation are on for Voyager 1, a manmade object, which will pass on to the new realm in space bidding a farewell to the solar system. Comments Read more	Co-inventor of 'cold fusion’ Martin Fleischmann dies at 85 Wed, 08/08/2012 - 14:53 by Minnie Mahendru British electro-chemist Martin Fleischmann, who claimed to have found a way to bring nuclear fusion in a glass bottle at room temperature, breathed his last on Friday. Comments Read more	Let the Earth stretch Saturday night just a leap second longer! Sat, 30/06/2012 - 13:33 by Minnie Mahendru International timekeepers are busy adding up one more second to the time clock at 12’o clock worldwide time on Saturday, 30th June, 2012. The official atomic clocks are being coordinated by the time keepers from time to time. All these adjustments have to be made because of the gradual reduction in the Earth’s speed due to the moon’s tidal pull and the atomic clock also moves a tad too fast. Comments Read more
Colossal solar twisters raise the sun’s temperature to exhorbitant degrees Fri, 29/06/2012 - 11:51 by Minnie Mahendru Enormous and gigantic 'solar twisters' that are nearly 1000 miles broad have been found to take the sun's atmosphere to very high temperatures, as high as millions of degrees centigrade. These magnetic tornadoes swirling around are found to heat the immediate layer above the sun to extremely high levels, channeling extreme temperatures from the sun on to the layer above it making it scorching hot. The heat is so high that it can lend enough power to make “clean” reactors on earth. The tornadoes that are seen on the Earth are thousands of times smaller, of lesser intensity than the solar tornadoes. Comments Read more	Unique and very “close planet duo” surfaces on the astrophysicists list Fri, 22/06/2012 - 14:13 by Minnie Mahendru Kepler, NASA’s planet hunting spacecraft, used by the astrophysicists has unearthed an “unusual duo” of extra solar planets.The strange pair of planets have orbits near each other’s doorstep. The bigger of the two planets emerges to be more than two times the magnitude of the full moon found in the second “odd” planet’s night sky. Comments Read more	Solar storms from giant sun spot heading toward Earth Fri, 11/05/2012 - 10:02 by Sam Ross According to the Space Weather Observers Solar flares are heading towards Earth and are expected to strike Earth’s magnetic field sooner. Comments Read more
Comet Lovejoy plunges into sun's corona, survives Sat, 17/12/2011 - 13:00 by Sam Ross A newly found comet named Lovejoy managed to survive its close encounter with the sun on Thursday. Comments Read more	Astronomers discover new planet from another galaxy Fri, 19/11/2010 - 11:11 by Anter Prakash Singh European astronomers say that they have discovered a new planet orbiting a red star. Also, scientists claim that the planet is from another galaxy. Comments Read more	Comet watchers waiting for show Wed, 13/10/2010 - 07:13 by Prince damin Washingtown -- A comet rapidly approaching Earth should put on a good light show when it nears our planet and the sun in late October, U.S. astronomers say.it But a NASA spacecraft will get the best view of all when it flies within 430 miles of the icy solar system wanderer on Nov. 4, ScienceNews.org reported. Comet Hartley 2 orbits the sun ever 6.46 years and will come within 11 million miles of Earth, about 45 times as far away as the moon, on Oct. 20 when it will be visible to the naked eye in the Northern Hemisphere as a fuzzy object in the constellation Auriga. Sky watchers in the Southern Hemisphere will get their best chance to glimpse it as it moves away from the sun in November. Comments Read more
Probe to eye Martian atmosphere 'theft' Fri, 08/10/2010 - 10:38 by Prince damin Boulder, Colo. -- A NASA mission to Mars will study how the sun has stolen the planet's atmosphere, condemning it to a cold and sterile existence, researchers say. Mars once had a thicker atmosphere and was warm enough for liquid water to flow on the surface, scientists believe, but somehow that thick atmosphere got lost in space, a NASA release says. The sun with its solar wind is the principal suspect. All planets in our solar system are constantly blasted by the thin stream of electrically charged gas that continuously blows from the sun's surface into space. Earth's global magnetic field shields our atmosphere by diverting most of the solar wind around it. Comments Read more	September equinox 2010: Harvest moon, Jupiter usher autumn Thu, 23/09/2010 - 17:22 by Jaspreet Virk It's fall equinox in the northern hemisphere! The equinox occurred at 03:09 (or 3:09 a.m.) Coordinated Universal Time, marking the official beginning of autumn season. Comments Read more	Theory could explain longer solar cycles Fri, 13/08/2010 - 07:37 by harsheeb Boulder -- The sun's cycles of sunspots, solar flares and magnetic activity may be influenced by a plasma "conveyor belt" moving across its surface, U.S. scientists say. The sun goes through a cycle of such activities lasting around 11 years, and the level of the activity can affect navigation and communications systems on Earth, an article in the journal Geophysical Research Letters says. But the last cycle, ending in 2008, lasted significantly longer than previous cycles, scientists say. A study conducted by the National Center for Atmospheric Research suggests one reason for the long cycle could be changes in the sun's conveyor belt. Comments Read more