A solar probe launched by the European Space Agency in 2020 made its first close approach to the Sun and captured the chaotic encounter in dazzling detail. The ESA’s Solar Orbiter, on March 26, reached inside the orbit of Mercury, the closest planet to our Sun. Encounters like this are known as a perihelion, when […]
04
May
May
There’s something wonderful about sitting under the night sky, watching a meteor shower play out overhead. However, observers in the southern hemisphere usually get the short end of the stick, with most of the best showers strongly favouring those north of the equator. Every May, however, southern observers get a special treat – the Eta […]
14
Apr
Apr
Scientists are expecting a major solar storm to hit the Earth on April 14. This event could cause possible damage to Earth, researchers suggest. Space agencies say that this geomagnetic solar storm could be particularly powerful as the Sun has been quite active lately. Recently, the Sun has been flaring up more. This is because it […]
29
Mar
Mar
The European Space Agency’s solar orbiter has taken the highest-resolution image yet of the Sun’s full disk and atmosphere, the corona, during its latest close flyby of our home star. The orbiter was at a distance of just 75 million kilometres – half the distance between Earth’s average orbit and the Sun – on March […]
25
Mar
Mar
Researchers have detected a mysterious set of waves coming out of the Sun that, inexplicably, appears to travel three times faster than earlier predicted. The researchers think these waves could help them understand the interiors of the Sun, which is usually not observed even by space-based telescopes. Described as a “true mystery”, these waves were […]
04
Mar
Mar
The Sun is a mysterious place. Its atmosphere gets much hotter the farther one goes from the Sun’s blazing surface. In fact, the outermost part of the Sun (corona) burns at a temperature rising to one million degrees Celsius, while just 1,500 kilometres below, the surface simmers at 5,500 degrees Celsius. The biggest challenge in […]
28
Feb
Feb
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has again completed a close flyby of the Sun in a bid to understand how our neighbouring star works. It was Parker’s 11th close approach to the Sun and it came within 5.3 million miles (8.5 million kilometres) of the nearly perfect ball of hot plasma. In comparison, the distance was […]
07
Feb
Feb
Planets do not take much longer to form after stars have formed. For example, the Sun formed 4.6 billion years ago and the Earth about 4.5 billion years ago. However, scientists now say it is not necessarily the only possibility. They say planets can form even if a star is nearing its death, long after […]
01
Feb
Feb
Trends on SGX Nifty indicated a positive opening for the domestic markets. New Delhi: The domestic stock indices are likely to trade in green on Tuesday ahead of the Union Budget 2022-23 presentation. Asian share markets traded on a higher note as Japan’s Nikkei was up 0.71 per cent and South Korea’s KOSPI surged 1.87 per […]
21
Jan
Jan
Sun’s surface is marked by electrically charged gases that keep generating powerful magnetic forces. Their area of influence is called magnetic fields. As these gases are dynamic, they continuously stretch and twist the magnetic fields. Sometimes, this tangling of magnetic fields causes a sudden explosion of energy called solar flares. These flares, if strong enough, […]