Tag: The Sun

A giant sunspot continued to break records this week and is currently visible to the unaided eye with solar eclipse glasses. Between Saturday (Feb. 24) and Monday (Feb. 26), as the sunspot known as AR3590 turned toward Earth, it also grew by around 25% to become the largest sunspot of the current 11-year solar cycle, solar cycle 25, measuring around 9.5 times the surface area of Earth. NASA says that while it is never safe to look directly at the sun with unprotected eyes, eclipse glasses are perfect for observing…

A gigantic plume of plasma recently exploded from the sun’s south pole, where solar eruptions almost never occur. The explosion, which a photographer captured in stunning detail, is another telltale sign that the sun is about to enter its most active phase — the solar maximum.  The rare phenomenon occurred on Feb. 17, when a solar flare exploded from a sunspot near the sun’s south pole, releasing a gigantic column of ionized gas, or plasma, that towered around 124,300 miles (200,000 kilometers) above the solar surface — around 15 times…

A sunspot so large it was seen from the surface of Mars is now facing Earth.  The gargantuan sunspot group AR3576 from end to end stretches for more than 124,274 miles (200,000 kilometers) and contains at least four dark cores each larger than Earth, according to Spaceweather.com. It was imaged by NASA’s Perseverance Rover from the surface of Mars just last week.  The sunspot is so big it can be seen from Earth without the need for complex viewing equipment. Just don a pair of certified eclipse glasses and look…

A powerful solar flare erupted from a giant unstable sunspot last night, triggering radio blackouts on Earth and firing a hot plasma plume through the sun’s atmosphere at speeds of 900,000 mph (400 km/s). The long-duration solar flare from the sunspot region AR3575 began on Monday  (Feb 5) at 8:30 p.m. EST (0130 GMT on Feb 6) and peaked at 10:15 EST (0315 GMT on Feb 6), according to solar physicist Keith Strong who posted details about the eruption on X.  The eruption also released a coronal mass ejection (CME)…

A series of gigantic yet eerily faint plasma loops temporarily rose above our home star’s surface after a powerful solar flare exploded from the sun on Monday, stunning new photos show.  These loops linger like ghostly echoes of the departed solar storm, but scientists still don’t know exactly how the ethereal remnants take shape. On Monday (Jan. 29), a powerful 6.8 magnitude M-class solar flare —  the second highest class of solar flares behind X-class flares — erupted from sunspot AR3559 as it began to disappear behind the sun‘s western…

[embedded content] Miguel Claro is a professional photographer, author and science communicator based in Lisbon, Portugal, who creates spectacular images of the night sky. As a European Southern Observatory Photo Ambassador and member of The World At Night and the official astrophotographer of the Dark Sky Alqueva Reserve, he specializes in astronomical “Skyscapes” that connect both Earth and the night sky.  On Feb. 22, 2022, a gigantic solar prominence formed on the surface of the sun, blasting a large coronal mass ejection (CME) into space.  Solar prominences, or filaments, are large loops of plasma flowing along twisted…

From an early age, we are taught to understand that the planets of our solar system change in position while orbiting a central star, the sun. But does the sun itself move within the solar system? Well, in general the sun is far from static in the universe. We know, for instance, that our star orbits the heart of the Milky Way at staggering speeds reaching 450,000 miles per hour (720,000 kilometers per hour) and dragging the whole solar system along with it. Over the course of the day, the…

To truly understand what makes the solar wind tick, heliophysicists must analyze the minuscule features on the sun‘s surface that help accelerate the star’s charged particles out through the solar system. And to perform that task with better precision, they need better ways of seeing in ultraviolet. Enter a technology called the photon sieve: a sort of lens that helps subtly bend ultraviolet light toward a camera. To be clear, a photon sieve is no ordinary lens; it is a cutting-edge work of engineering only possible with the most modern…

Miguel Claro is a professional photographer, author and science communicator based in Lisbon, Portugal, who creates spectacular images of the night sky. As a European Southern Observatory Photo Ambassador and member of The World At Night and the official astrophotographer of the Dark Sky Alqueva Reserve, he specializes in astronomical “Skyscapes” that connect both Earth and the night sky.  A huge loop of plasma dances above the surface of the sun in a stunning timelapse captured by astrophotographer Miguel Claro. The feature, known as a solar prominence, was visible on…