Despite Tantalizing Hints, Voyager 1 Has Not Crossed into the Interstellar Medium
December 4th, 2012 |
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Voyager 1 is going, going … not quite gone. The well-traveled NASA spacecraft, launched in 1977, is headed out of the heliosphere, the fluctuating bubble in space inflated by plasma streaming outward from the sun. For years Voyager 1 has been closing in on the heliopause—the outer edge of the heliosphere—where the solar wind meets [...]
Keep reading »See the Stormy Sun That Produced Yesterday’s Geomagnetic Disturbance [Video]
September 27th, 2011 |
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A “strong to severe” geomagnetic storm hit Earth yesterday, NASA says, after the sun unleashed a burst of plasma from a turbulent region two days prior. The region, known as sunspot 1302, has sent forth a few blasts of energy called solar flares, including a flare and an accompanying belch of plasma called a coronal [...]
Keep reading »STEREO spacecraft peek at both sides of the sun at once
February 7th, 2011 |
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NASA’s STEREO mission has lived up to its name, placing two spacecraft in position to observe both sides of the sun simultaneously. Most solar missions are in mono, so to speak—they rely on a single observatory, from which only one hemisphere of the sun is visible at any given time. But STEREO comprises twin spacecraft [...]
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