sun
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A Mars Rover Saw Enormous Dark Patches on the Sun, and Now They’re Visible From Earth
A striking set of gigantic sunspots, first spotted from Mars and now designated AR3576, is currently facing Earth, capturing the attention of astronomers, space enthusiasts, and concerned space weather forecasters. The cluster, nicknamed the “Martian sunspots,” was first discovered by NASA’s Perseverance rover using its MastCam in the final week of January. Since this initial…
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Astronomers Spot New Aurora in the Gases Around Uranus
Feast your eyes on Uranus’ glowing edges. We’re serious—a team of astronomers has spotted a new aurora on the seventh planet from the Sun, glowing at infrared wavelengths. Ultraviolet aurorae were first spotted on the planet in 1986, but an infrared aurora had never been seen before. The aurora’s discovery was made with the Keck…
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India’s First Solar Mission Begins Studying Particles Surrounding Earth
In a little over two weeks since its launch, India’s Aditya-L1 mission started collecting data to help analyze the behaviour of particles that surround Earth. The spacecraft’s Supra Thermal & Energetic Particle Spectrometer (STEPS) instrument was switched on on September 10 while the spacecraft was around 50,000 kilometres away from Earth, the Indian Space Research…
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Two-Faced: Wacky White Dwarf Keeps Its Surface Gases Separate
Astronomers have discovered an ancient stellar remnant that keeps its light elements separate, in a strange first. The object is a white dwarf, an ancient core of a dead star. White dwarfs are small (hence their name, obviously), clocking in at about the size of Earth, but with a mass similar to that of the…