light sources
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What’s Up With STEVE? New Finding Adds a Twist to the Aurora-Like Enigma
STEVE, a strange ribbon of purple and green haze discovered by citizen scientists in 2016, just got even weirder. While looking through archival data, a team of scientists discovered that the aurora-like phenomenon has a secret twin moving in the opposite direction. A photo of STEVE’s long-lost sibling hanging out above the Norwegian Arctic was…
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Massive Sunspot Rivals the One Linked to Colossal Solar Storm in 1859
The Sun is a hot mess right now. Solar maximum is fast approaching, and a giant dark spot on the surface of the Sun keeps growing while spewing radiation out to space in the process. Sunspot R3664 now stretches across nearly 124,300 miles (200,000 kilometers), almost as big as the sunspot that appeared on the…
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Researchers Spot ‘Aurora’ Above Sunspot
Radio emissions detected about 40,000 kilometres above a dark region on the Sun have aurora-like qualities, according to a team of astronomers that studied the emissions. The emissions were seen above a sunspot— a dark region on the Sun’s surface. Magnetic fields around sunspots are about 2,500 times stronger than Earth’s, according to the National…
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NASA’s Parker Probe Shatters Records During Latest Solar Swoop
NASA’s groundbreaking Parker Solar Probe continues to set new milestones, diving continuously deeper towards the Sun, and offering insights into the star’s enigmatic atmosphere and how it affects space weather. On Wednesday, September 27, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe smashed its own record by approaching the Sun at a mere distance of 4.51 million miles (7.26…