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Hot Topic
Solar System
Sun
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Streams of the Sun
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| Topic: Sun |
10/04/09 |
| Contrary to popular belief, the number of sunspots visible on the Sun may not be an indication of changes in the Sun's impact on Earth. Last year, the Earth was bombarded with high levels of solar energy - even though the Sun was in a quiet phase of its 11-year cycle and sunspots had virtually disappeared. |
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Are Sunspots Disappearing?
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| Topic: Sun |
09/08/09 |
| The Sun is in the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century. Some observers are starting to wonder, are sunspots disappearing? Sunspots can have profound effects on the Earth's climate as well as human and satellite missions in orbit. |
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Living in a Dying Solar System, Part 1
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| Topic: Sun |
07/27/09 |
| Observations of distant stars tell us about our own future. Roughly 5 billion years from now, the Sun will begin to swell as a red giant, and the solar system will be transformed into a very different place. |
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Touching the Tangled Sun
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| Topic: Sun |
09/03/04 |
| One of the great mysteries for astronomers is why our Sun's surface is so much hotter than its core. The counterintuitive answer, according to a suite of solar observatories, hinges on the Sun's tangled magnetic field and deep, fiery waves. |
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Flying the Sun to Safety
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| Topic: Sun |
08/23/04 |
| The Genesis spacecraft spent 27 months collecting atoms from the solar wind as they streamed off the Sun's corona. When the Genesis sample capsule comes hurtling back to Earth on September 8, helicopter pilots will be waiting to grab it out of the sky. |
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Whirly Bird Catches the Urn
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| Topic: Sun |
08/20/04 |
| The Genesis mission will end September 8th, after capturing the first extraterrestrial samples to be returned since Apollo. The spacecraft has stowed pristine solar wind to help scientists search back in the planetary timeline. |
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What's Up with Prominent Sun?
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| Topic: Sun |
03/18/04 |
| Last November solar observers witnessed the largest solar flare ever observed. This month, the orbiting solar observatory snapped a spectacular image of the Sun ejecting an eruptive prominence, a relatively cooler gas ejection that stretched more than fifty Earth diameters and moved at 45,000 miles per hour. |
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Our Typical Dwarf Star
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| Topic: Sun |
07/22/03 |
| A great mystery about our own star is why its atmosphere is hotter than its surface. By studying microflares, solar physicists believe some of this energy is coming from the smaller but more frequent explosions on our typical dwarf star. |
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Goldstone, We Had a Problem
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| Topic: Sun |
07/06/03 |
| Scientists using the main solar observatory, SOHO, have been troubleshooting a locked antenna for weeks. If not solved, about a third of the year, the prediction of solar storms would be pushed back to a pre-1980's situation. |
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