Sun News

October 7, 2023

Top Headlines

Scientists Discover the Highest Energy Gamma-Rays Ever from a Pulsar

Oct. 5, 2023 — Scientists have detected the highest energy gamma rays ever from a dead star called a pulsar. The energy of these gamma rays clocked in at 20 tera-electronvolts, or about ten trillion times the energy of visible light. This observation is hard to ...

Plot Thickens in Hunt for Ninth Planet

Oct. 5, 2023 — A pair of theoretical physicists are reporting that the same observations inspiring the hunt for a ninth planet might instead be evidence within the solar system of a modified law of gravity originally developed to understand the rotation of ...

New Insights Into the Atmosphere and Star of an Exoplanet

Sep. 25, 2023 — A new study of the intriguing TRAPPIST-1 exoplanetary system has demonstrated the complex interaction between the activity of the system's star and its planetary ...

Electrons from Earth May Be Forming Water on the Moon

Sep. 14, 2023 — Planetary scientists have discovered that high energy electrons in Earth's plasma sheet are contributing to weathering processes on the Moon's surface and, importantly, the electrons may have aided the formation of water on the lunar ...

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updated 9:04pm EDT

Snaps Supersonic Outflow of Young Star

Sep. 14, 2023 — Herbig-Haro (HH) objects are luminous regions surrounding newborn stars, formed when stellar winds or jets of gas spewing from these newborn stars form shock waves colliding with nearby gas and dust ...

New Insights Into Neutrino Interactions

Sep. 11, 2023 — Elusive fundamental particles called neutrinos are predicted to interact unexpectedly with photons under extreme ...

Study Hints at the Existence of the Closest Black Holes to Earth in the Hyades Star Cluster

Sep. 8, 2023 — A new article hints at the existence of several black holes in the Hyades cluster -- the closest open cluster to our solar system -- which would make ...

Ravenous Black Hole Consumes Three Earths'-Worth of Star Every Time It Passes

Sep. 7, 2023 — Massive burst of X-rays detected by astronomers indicates material three times the mass of Earth burning up in a black hole. They observed a star ...

Neptune's Disappearing Clouds Linked to the Solar Cycle

Aug. 29, 2023 — Astronomers have uncovered a link between Neptune's shifting cloud abundance and the 11-year solar cycle, in which the waxing and waning of the Sun's entangled magnetic fields drives solar ...

Could Artificially Dimming the Sun Prevent Ice Melt?

Aug. 11, 2023 — With methods of so-called geoengineering, the climate could theoretically be artificially influenced and cooled. Researchers have now investigated whether it would be possible to prevent the melting ...

After Seventeen Years, a Spacecraft Makes Its First Visit Home

Aug. 10, 2023 — On Aug. 12, 2023, NASA's STEREO-A spacecraft will pass between the Sun and Earth, marking the first Earth flyby of the nearly 17-year-old mission. The visit home brings a special chance for the ...

Geomagnetic Field Protects Earth from Electron Showers

Aug. 4, 2023 — Geophysicists studied the activity of high energy electrons and clarified the unexpected protective role of the geomagnetic field surrounding the ...

Scientists Discover the Highest-Energy Light Coming from the Sun

Aug. 3, 2023 — New research details the discovery of the highest-energy light ever observed from the sun. The international team behind the discovery also found that this type of light, known as gamma rays, is ...

Sun 'Umbrella' Tethered to Asteroid Might Help Mitigate Climate Change

July 31, 2023 — Earth is rapidly warming and scientists are developing a variety of approaches to reduce the effects of climate change. An astronomer has proposed a novel approach -- a solar shield to reduce the ...

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Summaries
Headlines

New Clues on the Source of the Universe's Magnetic Fields

July 31, 2023 — Researchers offer insight into the source of cosmic magnetic fields. The research team used models to show that magnetic fields may spontaneously arise in turbulent plasma. Their simulations showed ...

James Webb Space Telescope Sees Jupiter Moons in a New Light

July 27, 2023 — Last year, JWST made spectral observations of Ganymede and infrared observations of Io. Absorption lines of hydrogen peroxide at Ganymede's poles indicate radiolysis of water ice by charged ...

Hubble Sees Evaporating Planet Getting the Hiccups

July 27, 2023 — A young planet whirling around a petulant red dwarf star is changing in unpredictable ways orbit-by-orbit. It is so close to its parent star that it experiences a consistent, torrential blast of ...

Ancient, High-Energy Impacts Could Have Fueled Venus Volcanism

July 20, 2023 — A team has modeled the early impact history of Venus to explain how Earth's sister planet has maintained a youthful surface despite lacking plate tectonics. The team compared the early collision ...

Does This Exoplanet Have a Sibling Sharing the Same Orbit?

July 19, 2023 — Astronomers have found the possible 'sibling' of a planet orbiting a distant star. The team has detected a cloud of debris that might be sharing this planet's orbit and which, they ...

Astronomers Discover Striking Evidence of 'Unusual' Stellar Evolution

July 17, 2023 — Astronomers have found evidence that some stars boast unexpectedly strong surface magnetic fields, a discovery that challenges current models of how they ...

Giant Swirling Waves at Edge of Jupiter's Magnetosphere

July 17, 2023 — A team has found that NASA's Juno spacecraft orbiting Jupiter frequently encounters giant swirling waves at the boundary between the solar wind and Jupiter's magnetosphere. The waves are an ...

Astronomers Identify the Coldest Star Yet That Emits Radio Waves

July 13, 2023 — Brown dwarf stars rarely emit radio waves. Here scientists have found the coldest star yet emitting at these long wave lengths. Understanding the science of 'ultracool brown dwarfs' will ...

James Webb Telescope Catches Glimpse of Possible First-Ever 'Dark Stars'

July 13, 2023 — Three bright objects initially identified as galaxies in observations from the James Webb Space Telescope might actually represent an exotic new form of star. If confirmed, the discovery would also ...

Rare, Double-Lobe Nebula Resembles Overflowing Cosmic 'Jug'

July 13, 2023 — A billowing pair of nearly symmetrical loops of dust and gas mark the death throes of an ancient red-giant star. The resulting structure, said to resemble an old style of English jug, is a rarely ...

Webb Celebrates First Year of Science With Close-Up on Birth of Sun-Like Stars

July 12, 2023 — From our cosmic backyard in the solar system to distant galaxies near the dawn of time, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has delivered on its promise of revealing the universe like never before ...

Why the Day Is 24 Hours Long: Astrophysicists Reveal Why Earth's Day Was a Constant 19.5 Hours for Over a Billion Years

July 5, 2023 — Astrophysicists have revealed how the slow and steady lengthening of Earth's day caused by the tidal pull of the moon was halted for over a billion years. They show that from approximately two ...

Life After Death: Astronomers Find a Planet That Shouldn't Exist

June 28, 2023 — The star would have inflated up to 1.5 times the planet's orbital distance -- engulfing the planet in the process -- before shrinking to its current size at only one-tenth of that ...

Molecular Filament Shielded Young Solar System from Supernova

June 22, 2023 — Isotope ratios found in meteorites suggest that a supernova exploded nearby while the Sun and Solar System were still forming. But the blast wave from a supernova that close could have potentially ...

Researchers Demystify the Unusual Origin of the Geminids Meteor Shower

June 15, 2023 — Princeton researchers used observations from NASA's Parker Solar Probe mission to deduce that it was likely a violent, catastrophic event -- such as a high-speed collision with another body or a ...

Scientists Report 'Benchmarks' for Extreme Space Weather

June 15, 2023 — Extreme space weather threatens vital satellites orbiting the Earth, including the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) which pass through the heart of the outer radiation belt. New research ...

Earth Was Created Much Faster Than We Thought: This Makes the Chance of Finding Other Habitable Planets in the Universe More Likely

June 14, 2023 — Over the past decades, researchers thought Earth was created over a period of more than 100 million years. However, a new study from suggests that the creation of Earth was much more rapid, and that ...

A Scorching-Hot Exoplanet Scrutinized by Astronomers

June 14, 2023 — Through the Gemini-North Telescope in Hawai'i, the chemical composition of WASP-76 b is revealed in unprecedented detail, giving new insights also into the composition of giant ...

Sun's Coldest Region Stores Secret to Heating Million-Degree Corona

June 14, 2023 — Researchers have unveiled the discovery of intense wave energy from a relatively cool, dark and strongly magnetized plasma region on the Sun, capable of traversing the solar atmosphere and ...

Pass the Salt: This Space Rock Holds Clues as to How Earth Got Its Water

June 13, 2023 — The discovery of tiny salt grains in a sample from an asteroid provides strong evidence that liquid water may be more common in the solar system than previously ...

Monday, July 31, 2023