light sources
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Streamers and Loops: What the Sun’s Hyperactive Phase Means for the Upcoming Solar Eclipse
Things have been heating up for the Sun, as the star approaches peak activity during its 11-year cycle, with giant eruptions bursting regularly from its surface. Luckily for us, this coincides with the Moon passing between the Earth and its host star, offering a captivating view of the solar corona during the upcoming solar eclipse.…
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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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Parker Solar Probe Sails Directly Through Sun’s Intense Plasma Burst
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe flew through an ejection of coronal material as it passed by the Sun in September 2022, giving researchers new data to understand how the Sun’s superheated plasma interacts with the surrounding interplanetary dust. The coronal mass ejection (CME) flown through by the probe is one of the most powerful ever recorded, according…
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No, Betelgeuse Won’t Go Supernova in ‘Tens of Years’ — or Even Centuries
The expiration date of Betelgeuse, a massive dying star about 642 light-years from Earth, is a hot topic in astronomy because of the star’s superlative size and its life cycle stage.