Tag: The Sun

It’s been one year since the most intense solar storm in decades created worldwide auroras. What have we learned?

NeRD

I’ll never forget the night of May 10, 2024. I remember having dinner with a friend and talking about the potential of seeing the northern lights in Northeast Ohio, a conversation that I had never had before or even thought was possible. It sounded unlikely, but earlier that week, the possibility was brought to my attention when I wrote one of my first-ever stories highlighting space weather triggered by the sun. As a meteorologist, space weather wasn’t something I talked about often, but the more I was learning that week,…

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What NASA Is Learning from the Biggest Geomagnetic Storm in 20 Years

NeRD

6 min read What NASA Is Learning from the Biggest Geomagnetic Storm in 20 Years One year on, NASA scientists are still making huge discoveries about the largest geomagnetic storm to hit Earth in two decades, the Gannon storm. The findings are helping us better understand and prepare for the ways in which the Sun’s activity can affect us. On May 10, 2024, the first G5 or “severe” geomagnetic storm in over two decades hit Earth. The event did not cause any catastrophic damages, but it did produce surprising effects…

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NASA’s IMAP Arrives at NASA Marshall For Testing in XRCF  

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3 Min Read NASA’s IMAP Arrives at NASA Marshall For Testing in XRCF   On March 18, NASA’s IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) arrived at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for thermal vacuum testing at the X-ray and Cryogenic Facility, which simulates the harsh conditions of space. The IMAP mission is a modern-day celestial cartographer that will map the solar system by studying the heliosphere, a giant bubble created by the Sun’s solar wind that surrounds our solar system and protects it from harmful interstellar radiation.  To view…

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NASA’s daredevil solar spacecraft survives 2nd close flyby of our sun

NeRD

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has successfully completed its second close flyby of the sun, the space agency announced earlier this week. The car-sized spacecraft swooped within 8 million miles (6.1 million kilometers) of the sun‘s surface at a whopping 430,000 miles per hour (692,000 kilometers per hour), matching the historic record it set during its encounter on Christmas Eve last year. During this approach, which occurred on Saturday (March 22), the Parker Solar Probe once again operated autonomously, with its four science instruments programmed to collect science data about solar…

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How Can I See the Northern Lights? We Asked a NASA Expert: Episode 54

NeRD

2 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) How can I see the northern lights? To see the northern lights, you need to be in the right place at the right time. Auroras are the result of charged particles and magnetism from the Sun called space weather dancing with the Earth’s magnetic field. And they happen far above the clouds. So you need clear skies, good space weather at your latitude and the higher, more polar you can be, the better. You need a lot of patience…

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NASA’s EZIE Launches on Mission to Study Earth’s Electrojets

NeRD

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Vandenberg Space Force Base, carrying NASA’s EZIE spacecraft into orbit. SpaceX Under the nighttime California sky, NASA’s EZIE (Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer) mission launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 11:43 p.m. PDT on March 14. Taking off from Vandenberg Space Force Base near Santa Barbara, the EZIE mission’s trio of small satellites will fly in a pearls-on-a-string configuration approximately 260 to 370 miles above Earth’s surface to map the auroral electrojets, powerful electric currents that flow through our upper atmosphere in the polar…

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Cosmic Mapmaker: NASA’s SPHEREx Space Telescope Ready to Launch

NeRD

6 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Ahead of launch, NASA’s SPHEREx is enclosed in a payload fairing at Vandenberg Space Force Base on March 2. The observatory is stacked atop the four small satellites that make up the agency’s PUNCH mission. NASA/BAE Systems/Benjamin Fry NASA’s latest space observatory is targeting a March 8 liftoff, and the agency’s PUNCH heliophysics mission is sharing a ride. Here’s what to expect during launch and beyond. In a little over a day, NASA’s SPHEREx space telescope is slated to…

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NASA’s EZIE Launching to Study Magnetic Fingerprints of Earth’s Aurora

NeRD

5 Min Read NASA’s EZIE Launching to Study Magnetic Fingerprints of Earth’s Aurora High above Earth’s poles, intense electrical currents called electrojets flow through the upper atmosphere when auroras glow in the sky. These auroral electrojets push about a million amps of electrical charge around the poles every second. They can create some of the largest magnetic disturbances on the ground, and rapid changes in the currents can lead to effects such as power outages. In March, NASA plans to launch its EZIE (Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer) mission to learn…

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NASA’s PUNCH Mission to Revolutionize Our View of Solar Wind 

NeRD

6 Min Read NASA’s PUNCH Mission to Revolutionize Our View of Solar Wind  Earth is immersed in material streaming from the Sun. This stream, called the solar wind, is washing over our planet, causing breathtaking auroras, impacting satellites and astronauts in space, and even affecting ground-based infrastructure.  NASA’s PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission will be the first to image the Sun’s corona, or outer atmosphere, and solar wind together to better understand the Sun, solar wind, and Earth as a single connected system.   Launching no earlier…

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Tiny plasma jets on the sun drive the elusive solar wind, Europe’s Solar Orbiter reveals

NeRD

Solar scientists have found tiny, short-lived jets of energy on our sun to be the primary drivers of the solar wind, marking a step toward decoding our star’s elusive behavior and, eventually, refining predictions of its storms. The “solar wind” refers to pockets of energetic particles blasted out from the sun. These particles are occasionally directed toward Earth, like last summer when a rare cluster of such storms rained on our planet and sparked breathtaking auroras across the globe — likely the strongest auroras we’ve seen in centuries. The solar…

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