Solar maximum is coming, but we won't know after it's over | Watch the sun spit out colossal plasma plume (video) | How will the 2024 total solar eclipse differ from 2017?
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The sun has been gradually gaining strength as it nears its highest rate of activity - solar maximum -- during its approximately 11-year solar cycle. But, scientists won't be able to ascertain whether solar maximum has occurred until at least seven months after the fact. We asked ESA's Space Weather Coordination Center's (SSCC) solar expert center why this is the case.
(NASA/SDO and the AIA, EVE, and HMI science teams)
A powerful solar flare erupted from a giant unstable sunspot last night, triggering radio blackouts on Earth and firing a hot plasma plume through the sun's atmosphere at speeds of 900,000 mph (400 km/s). The long-duration solar flare from the sunspot region AR3575 began on Monday (Feb 5) at 8:30 p.m. EST (0130 GMT on Feb 6) and peaked at 10:15 EST (0315 GMT on Feb 6), according to solar physicist Keith Strong who posted details about the eruption on X.
In Aug, 2017, a total solar eclipse moved from the Pacific to the Atlantic, throwing a narrow corridor through 14 U.S. states under the moon's shadow in the first coast-to-coast totality for 99 years. On that day, the shadow moved from Oregon across the U.S. to South Carolina, from roughly northwest to southeast. Now, it's about to happen again, with the total solar eclipse on April 8 beginning in the Pacific and ending in the Atlantic, but this time, there are some distinct differences.
In recent weeks as NASA and JPL have been coming to terms with the end of Ingenuity's groundbreaking mission, agency leaders have praised the helicopter and the teams behind it.
About a year ago, Latif Nasser was having a pretty ordinary evening. The day was done, the sun had set, and he was standing in front of his two-year-old son's crib, tucking him in. It was the same room he'd visited tons of times before, performing the same duties, looking at the same wall decorated with the same solar system poster he'd seen from the same … wait. What was that? For the first time, Nasser did a double take of the artfully illustrated poster. And, for the first time, he noticed something strange. This unassuming diagram indicated Venus has a moon - a moon named Zoozve?
Researchers there are using instruments to dig into what the OSIRIS-REx collectibles are telling them, right down to the atomic scale. Space.com caught up with two leading scientists now engaged in extracting what those darkish asteroid particles are illuminating, sorting out how these materials exported from Bennu came to be.
Using the overarching narrative of "Halo's" dense sci-fi worldbuilding as a starting point and launching into an alternate timeline with revised characters and story elements that enflamed hardcore gamers out of their Mjolnir power armor, the show's executive producers went their own way with a tangential version of "Halo."
This Week In Space podcast: Episode 96 - It's Space TV! | NASA's PACE satellite will study Earth's tiniest mysteries | Night sky, February 2024: What you can see this month
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Space and science TV has come a long way since the old-time staples like Mr. Wizard and the original Bille Nye, The Science Guy. History Channel producer Jeff Stepp joins us to talk about his work on "The UnXplained: With William Shatner" and other science shows - how are they conceived, what is production like, and what is the future of space and science-oriented media?
Today, NASA is scheduled to launch a major, multi-million dollar satellite to a reserved spot in Earth's orbit. Sitting above even the International Space Station, the spacecraft called PACE (which stands for Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem) has a very big goal: to monitor our planet's health on an epic scale, starting from deep within its vast blue seas to far across its candy white clouds.
Find out what's up in your night sky during February 2024 and how to see it in this Space.com stargazing guide. On Tuesday, Feb. 6, the pretty crescent moon will share the southeastern predawn sky with the bright planet Venus and far fainter Mars. Skywatchers viewing the scene before about 6 a.m. local time can spot the 16%-illuminated crescent moon shining about two fist diameters to the right (or 18 degrees to the celestial WSW) of Venus, with the stars of Sagittarius sprinkled between them. Take a photo!
NASA's PACE spacecraft, which will help scientists gauge the health of oceans around the world, is set to launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Tuesday (Feb. 6) at 1:33 a.m. EST (0633 GMT). You can watch the liftoff live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA, or directly via the space agency. Coverage will begin at 12:45 a.m. EST (0545 GMT).
(NASA, ESA, and R. Foley (University of California – Santa Cruz); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America))
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has zoomed in on one side of a cosmic tug-of-war that will rage between two galaxies for tens of millions of years. Frustratingly, this is one competition in which a clear winner may never emerge, as the two galaxies could well be drawn together to merge into one at the end of this gravitational contest.
SpaceX wants to launch its giant Starship vehicle often over the coming months, as a new photo makes abundantly clear. SpaceX's "megabay" at its Starbase site in South Texas, the center of Starship manufacturing and launch activities, is jam-packed with towering stainless-steel cylinders - Super Heavy vehicles, the first stage of SpaceX's Starship megarocket - which rise nearly to the roof.
The technology that enabled SLIM's precision moon landing could assist future touchdowns by allowing spacecraft to land in relatively small areas amid rocky or uneven terrain.
Checking in with Prime Video's outstanding lineup of animated fare is a new full trailer for the streaming platform's wacky adult sci-fi series, "The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy," and it's gonna be pure cosmic chaos when this weird space doctor project premieres on Feb. 23.
