sun

What is the NASA Mission to the Sun all about?

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There is an old joke that goes as follows. A few guys in a bar are boasting about the progress that their various nations are making in space … A Russian guy boasts, “Next year we will put a man on the Moon“. An American boasts, “That’s no big deal, we have done that. Next year we will … Read more

Daily Star: We are all doomed

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I must admit that sometimes the daily tabloids go so overboard that the pure absurdness of it all becomes quite entertaining. Last Saturday the UK’s Daily Star was announcing that the sun had a hole and so we were all doomed … Well yes, a typical tabloid headline. It might indeed be an article about a coronal … Read more

Saudi Cleric claims that sun revolves around the earth – #cleric_rejects_rotation_of_Earth

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Yesterday, when I posted some of the rather strange claims being made by Pat Robertson on US TV, I had convinced myself that perhaps that was as weird as it gets. Well, it turns out that I was quite wrong about this because a friend shared something even more eccentric. A Saudi cleric has popped up … Read more

Mystery of Solar Corona being far hotter than the sun’s surface resolved

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A new paper has just appeared in Science dated 7th Jan (wow, its still only 6th, have I just fallen into a time rift?). Anyway, they appear to have unraveled a mystery. For quite some time it has been known that the solar corona is far hotter than the sun’s surface by millions of degrees, … Read more

Huge Magnetic Filament Erupts on the Sun – Don’t Panic

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Wired magazine reports that a magnetic filament more than 50 times the Earth’s width is erupting off the surface of the sun … here is the NASA time lapsed image of this … Wired then goes on to report … The loop of hot plasma has been snaking around the sun’s southeast limb since Dec. … Read more