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On the grand cosmic scale, our little corner of the Universe isn’t all that special – this idea lies at the heart of the Copernican principle. Yet there’s one major aspect about our planet that’s peculiar indeed: Our Sun is a yellow dwarf. Because our home star is what we know most intimately, it … Read more
Since early this year, skywatchers on Earth have been tracking Comet Leonard, a kilometer-wide dirty snowball made of ice, rock, and dust. Now, as it heads towards a close encounter with the Sun on 3 January 2022, several spacecraft – with the distinct advantage of having an unobstructed front-row seat to the action – have … Read more
Many science fans were freaking out this week when NASA confirmed that its Parker Solar Probe had become the first spacecraft ever to ‘touch the Sun’ back in April. But if you thought that was mind-boggling, hang on to your seat, because there’s actually time-lapse footage of the spacecraft’s view as it swoops into the … Read more
December’s cold moon, the longest full moon of the year, will debut this Saturday night (December 18), making it the last full moon before the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. To catch the cold moon at its fullest, look up at 11:36 pm EST (0432 UTC on December 19). If you miss that moment, you’ll … Read more
In the search for “potentially-habitable” extrasolar planets, one of the main things scientists look at is stellar activity. Whereas stars like our own, a G-type (G2V) yellow dwarf, are considered stable over time, other classes are variable and prone to flare-ups – particularly M-type red dwarf stars. Even if a star has multiple planets … Read more
A NASA spacecraft has entered a previously unexplored region of the Solar System—the Sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona. The long-awaited milestone, which happened in April but was announced on 14 December, is a major accomplishment for the Parker Solar Probe, a craft that is flying closer to the Sun than any mission in history. “We … Read more
The Parker Solar Probe has finally reached the atmosphere of the sun. The NASA spacecraft spent more than three years winding its way by planets and creeping gradually closer to our star to learn more about the origin of the solar wind, which pushes charged particles across the solar system. Since solar activity has a … Read more
By Leah Crane An illustration of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Joy Ng NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has reached out to our star and touched its atmosphere. On 28 April, it became the first spacecraft to enter the upper atmosphere of the sun, called the corona. This milestone was announced on 14 … Read more
In an incredible historic first, a human-made spacecraft has swooped in and made contact with the Sun. On 28 April 2021, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe actually flew into and through the solar corona, the upper atmosphere of the Sun. Not only did it live to tell the tale – proving the efficacy of Parker’s high-tech … Read more
You’re looking at a 300-megapixel photo of our Sun. Astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy used a specially modified telescope, taking over 150,000 individual photos and combining them into this magnificent image (see below). “It took about 10 hours to stack all the data, and another 3-4 hours to get it from a raw stack to the final image,” … Read more