Sun – Page 2 – Astronomy Now

Old IMAX projectors simulate Sun in key test for Parker Solar Probe

1 May 2018 Astronomy Now

Scientists used four vintage IMAX projectors to simulate the blazing light from the Sun that a key instrument on NASA’s Parker Solar Probe will experience when flying closer to Earth’s star than any other spacecraft.

Astronomers collect spectra in search for Sun’s lost siblings

20 April 2018 William Harwood

Australian astronomers are in the process of collecting the spectra of a million stars across the Milky Way in a project to study galactic evolution. In the process, they hope to track down at least some of the sun’s lost siblings.

Pioneering ESA mission aims to create artificial solar eclipses

20 August 2017 Stephen Clark

As skywatchers and scientists converge on a transcontinental band of totality for Monday’s solar eclipse in the United States, engineers in Europe are building a unique pair of satellites to create artificial eclipses lasting for hours — a feat that that could be a boon for solar physicists but will escape the view of Earth-bound spectators.

Gravity wave’s detected in Sun’s interior reveal rapidly rotating core

8 August 2017 Astronomy Now

Scientists using the ESA/NASA SOHO solar observatory have found long-sought gravity modes of seismic vibration that imply the Sun’s core is rotating four times faster than its surface.

Team to use airborne telescopes to study Sun and Mercury during total solar eclipse

25 July 2017 Astronomy Now

A team led by the Southwest Research Institute will use airborne telescopes aboard NASA research aircraft to study the solar corona and Mercury’s surface during this summer’s total solar eclipse.

ALMA starts observing the Sun

17 January 2017 Stephen Clark

New images taken with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile have revealed otherwise invisible details of our Sun, including a new view of the dark, contorted centre of a sunspot that is nearly twice the diameter of the Earth.

Curious tilt of the Sun traced to undiscovered Planet Nine

20 October 2016 Astronomy Now

Planet Nine — the undiscovered planet at the edge of the solar system that was predicted by the work of Caltech’s Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown in January 2016 — appears to be responsible for the unusual tilt of the Sun. The large and distant planet may be adding a wobble to the solar system, giving the appearance that the Sun is tilted slightly.

Wall of Plasma by Eric Toops

29 August 2016 Astronomy Now

A searing solar prominence extends outwards from the surface of the Sun. The ‘wall of plasma’ is the height of three times the Earth’s diameter.

Britain’s pre-Stonehenge megaliths were aligned by astronomers

19 August 2016 Astronomy Now

For the first time, astroarchaeologists have statistically proven that the earliest standing stone monuments of Britain — the great circles — were constructed specifically in line with the movements of the Sun and Moon, 5000 years ago. University of Adelaide researchers used innovative 2-D and 3-D technology to test the patterns of alignment in the standing stones.

ACT system tracks solar eruptions in 3-D

29 June 2016 Astronomy Now

Scientists at Aberystwyth University have developed an automated method for three-dimensional tracking of massive eruptions from the Sun, called Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs). The Automated CME Triangulation (ACT) system uses data from three space-based observatories that orbit the Sun at different locations, allowing scientists to view the Sun and CMEs from different angles.