All Articles Tagged As: sunspots

A lightning strike in Africa helps take the pulse of the sun (11/16/2009)

Tel Aviv University's Professor Colin Price has developed a more definitive and reliable tool for measuring the sun's rotation when sunspots aren't visible -- and even when they are -- based on observations of common lightning strikes on earth. ...> Full Article

Measuring the Sun's hidden variability (9/26/2009)

Every 11 years, the sun undergoes a furious upheaval. Dark sunspots burst forth from beneath the sun's surface. Explosions as powerful as a billion atomic bombs spark intense flares of high-energy radiation. NASA is launching a sensor named EVE on the Solar Dynamics Observatory will be able to see these explosions. ...> Full Article

World largest telescope at NJIT's Big Bear captures sun's magnetic field better (5/22/2009)

NJIT's new 1.6-meter clear aperture solar telescope -- the largest of its kind in the world—is now operational. The unveiling of this remarkable instrument -- said to be the pathfinder for all future, large ground-based telescopes -- could not have come at a more auspicious moment for science. This year marks the 400th anniversary of Galileo's telescope that he used to demonstrate that sunspots are indeed on the Sun. ...> Full Article

Hidden Boundaries Of Sunspots Pump Out Plasma Into Interplanetary Space (10/16/2008)

Using new information from Hinode, an international mission to study the sun, scientists have found that the dim areas at the edges of active regions may hold the key to understanding how the sun converts vast amounts of energy from its surface into the solar wind ...> Full Article

How Round is the Sun? (10/5/2008)

Scientists using NASA's RHESSI spacecraft have measured the roundness of the sun with unprecedented precision, and they find that it is not a perfect sphere. During years of high solar activity the sun develops a thin "cantaloupe skin" that significantly increases its apparent oblateness. ...> Full Article

Sun goes longer than normal without producing sunspots (6/10/2008)

The sun has been laying low for the past couple of years, producing no sunspots and giving a break to satellites ...> Full Article

March 2008 Solar Cycle Prediction (3/21/2008)

Predicting the behavior of a sunspot cycle is fairly reliable once the cycle is well underway (about 3 years after the minimum in sunspot number occurs. Prior to that time the predictions are less reliable but nonetheless equally as important. Planning for satellite orbits and space missions often require knowledge of solar activity levels years in advance. ...> Full Article

Hinode Views 'Magnetic Trilobite' Sunspot (9/29/2007)

"We've never seen anything quite like it," says solar physicist Lika Guhathakurta from NASA headquarters. ...> Full Article