Sun News

February 3, 2025

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The Hidden Power of the Smallest Microquasars

Jan. 29, 2025 — Researchers found for the first time evidence that even microquasars containing a low-mass star are efficient particle accelerators, which leads to a significant impact on the interpretation of the abundance of gamma rays in the ...

Follow the Water: Searching for a Lunar Oasis

Jan. 28, 2025 — As humankind imagines living off-planet -- on the moon, Mars and beyond -- the question of how to sustain life revolves around the physical necessities of oxygen, food and water. We know there is water on the moon, but how do we find it? Researchers ...

Dwarf Planet Ceres: Building Blocks of Life Delivered from Space

Jan. 27, 2025 — The dwarf planet is a bizarre, cryovolcanic world. However, the organic deposits discovered on its surface so far are unlikely to originate from its interior. The organic material found in a few areas on the surface of dwarf planet Ceres is probably ...

New Measurements of Solar Radiative Opacity Thanks to Helioseismology

Jan. 27, 2025 — Researchers have pioneered an innovative method using helioseismology to measure the solar radiative opacity under extreme conditions. This groundbreaking work not only reveals gaps in our understanding of atomic physics but also confirms recent ...

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Astrophysicists Reveal Structure of 74 Exocomet Belts Orbiting Nearby Stars in Landmark Survey

Jan. 17, 2025 — Astrophysicists have imaged a large number of exocomet belts around nearby stars, and the tiny pebbles within them. The crystal-clear images show ...

Super-Earth Vs. Sub-Neptune? The Winner Is Super-Venus!

Jan. 15, 2025 — New observational data and simulation models have confirmed a new type of planet unlike anything found in the Solar System. This provides another piece of the puzzle to understand how planets and ...

NASA's Hubble Tracks Down a 'Blue Lurker' Among Stars

Jan. 13, 2025 — The name 'blue lurker' might sound like a villainous character from a superhero movie. But it is a rare class of star that NASA's Hubble Space Telescope explored by looking deeply into the open star ...

New Study Unveils Breakthrough in Understanding Cosmic Particle Accelerators

Jan. 13, 2025 — Scientists have come a step closer to understanding how collisionless shock waves -- found throughout the universe -- are able to accelerate ...

Light, Flexible and Radiation-Resistant: Organic Solar Cells for Space

Jan. 10, 2025 — Radiation testing suggests that solar cells made from carbon-based, or organic, materials could outperform conventional silicon and gallium arsenide for generating electricity in the final frontier, ...

Pluto-Charon Formation Scenario Mimics Earth-Moon System

Jan. 7, 2025 — A researcher has used advanced models that indicate that the formation of Pluto and Charon may parallel that of the Earth-Moon system. Both systems include a moon that is a large fraction of the size ...

First Results from 2021 Rocket Launch Shed Light on Aurora's Birth

Dec. 19, 2024 — Scientist have begun to reveal the particle-level processes that create the type of auroras that dance rapidly across the sky. The Kinetic-scale Energy and momentum Transport experiment -- KiNET-X -- ...

Best Glimpse Ever Into Icy Planetesimals of the Early Solar System

Dec. 19, 2024 — New studies offer a clearer picture of how the outer solar system formed and evolved based on analyses of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) and centaurs. The findings reveal the distribution of ices in ...

Uncovering a Centaur's Tracks: Scientists Examine Unique Asteroid-Comet Hybrid

Dec. 18, 2024 — Scientists recently led a team that found, for the first time, that Chiron has surface chemistry unlike other centaurs. Its surface it has both ...

Eyes on the Sun: Naked Thallium-205 Ion Decay Reveals History Over Millions of Years

Dec. 11, 2024 — The Sun generates its tremendous energy through the process of nuclear fusion. At the same time it releases a continuous stream of neutrinos -- ...

Superflares Once Per Century

Dec. 12, 2024 — Stars similar to the Sun produce a gigantic outburst of radiation on average about once every hundred years per star. Such superflares release more energy than a trillion hydrogen bombs and make all ...

A New Discovery About the Source of the Vast Energy in Cosmic Rays

Dec. 10, 2024 — New research suggests that these ultra-high energy rays derive their energy from magnetic ...

NASA's Hubble Celebrates Decade of Tracking Outer Planets

Dec. 9, 2024 — A NASA Hubble Space Telescope observation program called OPAL (Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy) obtains long-term baseline observations of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune in order to understand ...

Long-Sought Measurement of Exotic Beta Decay in Thallium Helps Extract the Timescale of the Sun's Birth

Nov. 14, 2024 — How long did it take our Sun to form in its stellar nursery? Scientists are now closer to an answer. They succeeded in the measurement of the bound-state beta decay of fully-ionized thallium ions at ...

New Solar Composition Ratios That Could Reconcile Longstanding Questions

Nov. 12, 2024 — A team combined compositional data of primitive bodies like Kuiper Belt objects, asteroids and comets with new solar data sets to develop a revised solar composition that potentially reconciles ...

Swirling Polar Vortices Likely Exist on the Sun

Nov. 11, 2024 — Like the Earth, the Sun likely has swirling polar vortices, according to new research. But unlike on Earth, the formation and evolution of these vortices are driven by magnetic ...

Asteroid Grains Shed Light on the Outer Solar System's Origins

Nov. 6, 2024 — Tiny grains from asteroid Ryugu are revealing clues to the magnetic forces that shaped the far reaches of the solar system over 4.6 billion years ago. The findings suggest the distal solar system ...

NASA's Hubble, Webb Probe Surprisingly Smooth Disk Around Vega

Nov. 1, 2024 — Teams of astronomers used the combined power of NASA's Hubble and James Webb space telescopes to revisit the legendary Vega ...

NRL Coronagraph Captures Unique Images of a Dusty Comet

Oct. 23, 2024 — U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) imaging instruments on three sun-orbiting observatories have captured sequences of comet C/2023 A3, known as Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, as it passed between the Earth and ...

NASA, NOAA: Sun Reaches Maximum Phase in 11-Year Solar Cycle

Oct. 15, 2024 — Experts have announced that the Sun has reached its solar maximum period, which could continue for the next year. Scientists will not be able to determine the exact peak of this solar maximum period ...

Researchers Find Clues to the Mysterious Heating of the Sun's Atmosphere

Oct. 11, 2024 — Researchers have made a significant advancement in understanding the underlying heating mechanism of the sun's atmosphere, finding that reflected plasma waves could drive the heating of coronal ...

Lightning Strikes Kick Off a Game of Electron Pinball in Space

Oct. 10, 2024 — When lightning cracks on Earth, especially high-energy electrons may fall out of Earth's inner radiation belt, according to a new study -- an electron 'rain' that could threaten ...

NASA's Hubble, New Horizons Team Up for a Simultaneous Look at Uranus

Oct. 11, 2024 — NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and New Horizons spacecraft simultaneously set their sights on Uranus recently, allowing scientists to make a direct comparison of the planet from two very ...

NASA's Hubble Watches Jupiter's Great Red Spot Behave Like a Stress Ball

Oct. 9, 2024 — Astronomers have observed Jupiter's legendary Great Red Spot (GRS), an anticyclone large enough to swallow Earth, for at least 150 years. But there are always new surprises -- especially when ...

Winds of Change: James Webb Space Telescope Reveals Elusive Details in Young Star Systems

Oct. 7, 2024 — Planet-forming disks, maelstroms of gas and dust swirling around young stars, are nurseries that give rise to planetary systems, including our solar system. Astronomers have discovered new details of ...

A New Era of Solar Observation

Oct. 3, 2024 — For the first time, scientists have taken near-daily measurements of the Sun's global coronal magnetic field, a region of the Sun that has only been observed irregularly in the past. The ...

Physicists Explore Possibility of Life Beyond Earth

Oct. 1, 2024 — Are there planets beyond Earth where humans can live? The answer is maybe, according to physicists examining F-type star ...

A New Birthplace for Asteroid Ryugu

Sep. 27, 2024 — Asteroid Ryugu possibly did not travel as far from its place of origin to its current near-Earth orbit as previously assumed. New research suggests that Ryugu was formed near Jupiter. Earlier studies ...

This Rocky Planet Around a White Dwarf Resembles Earth -- 8 Billion Years from Now

Sep. 26, 2024 — A 2020 microlensing event was caused by a planetary system with an Earth-like planet and brown dwarf. The star type was uncertain. The team has determined that the star is a white dwarf, a system ...

Astronomers Catch a Glimpse of a Uniquely Inflated and Asymmetric Exoplanet

Sep. 24, 2024 — Astronomers have observed the atmosphere of a hot and uniquely inflated exoplanet using NASA's James Webb Space ...