The Sun wields a huge influence on Earth. Its gravity holds our planet in its orbit, and solar energy drives the seasons, ocean currents, weather, climate, radiation belts, and auroras on Earth. The solar wind, a flow of charged particles from the Sun, constantly bombards Earth’s magnetosphere, a vast magnetic shield around the planet. The Sun occasionally releases...
Both these images from a camera called StowCam aboard OSIRIS-APEX show the same view taken six months apart, before (left) and after (right) the Jan. 2, 2024, perihelion. Notably, there is no observable difference on spacecraft surfaces, a good indication that the higher temperatures faced during perihelion didn’t alter the spacecraft. Another insight gleaned from...
NASA announced Tuesday it selected a new instrument to study the Sun and how it creates massive solar eruptions. The agency’s Joint EUV coronal Diagnostic Investigation, or JEDI, will capture images of the Sun in extreme ultraviolet light, a type of light invisible to our eyes but reveals many of the underlying mechanisms of the Sun’s activity. Once integrated aboard...
A new NASA mission is testing a new way to navigate our solar system by hoisting its sail into space – not to catch the wind, but the propulsive power of sunlight. NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System is led by the agency’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. The microwave oven-sized CubeSat is scheduled to launch aboard a Rocket Lab Electron...