Much has changed in the approximately 4.5 billion years since the solar system first emerged from a disk-shaped cloud of swirling dust and gas. The stuff from which everything is formed has undergone some serious changes: packed into planets, blown up by solar radiation and plasma, changed by interactions with other atoms. The basic components … Read more
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news about fascinating discoveries, scientific developments and more. CNN — When the sun unleashed an extreme solar storm and hit Mars in May, the red planet was awash with aurora and an influx of charged particles and radiation, NASA said. The sun has … Read more
As the moon orbits the Earth, the Earth orbits the sun, and the sun orbits the center of the Milky Way, moving up and down with respect to the galactic plane. A new study has suggested that this movement of our star through the Milky Way may be taking us through regions of space that … Read more
The sun fired a volley of radiation bursts in May. When they collided with Earth’s magnetic bubble, the world was treated to iridescent displays of the Northern and Southern Lights. But our planet wasn’t the only one in the sun’s line of fire. A few days after Earth’s light show, a new series of bursts … Read more
New research from Boston University and the Harvard Radcliffe Institute suggests that the sun passed through a massive hydrogen cloud two million years ago, directly impacting the protective heliosphere and possibly permanently altering all life on Earth. Evidence for this event and its effects on Earth’s climate also shows that the Sun’s location in the … Read more
In recent weeks, the sun has become so noisy that Earth has been repeatedly bombarded with radiation and particles emitted by bursts of solar plasma. But Earth isn’t the only planet affected by solar storms. At just 1.5 times Earth’s distance from the Sun, Mars is also being buffeted by the massive outpourings of particles … Read more
The solar storms that gave rise to the hugely impressive auroras seen around the world on May 10 also dealt Mars a blow, creating auroras over the Red Planet and showering its surface with harmful radiation. The primary source of the solar storms was an active region, AR3664which was an intense knot of magnetic flux … Read more
A recent solar eruption sent a powerful blast of charged particles and radiation toward Mars, giving scientists a rare glimpse of how these events unfold on planets other than Earth. Sonos’ very first headphones are too expensive for what they offer NASA’s Curiosity rover captured the aftermath of a solar storm on the surface of … Read more
In addition to producing auroras, a recent extreme storm has provided more details about the amount of radiation future astronauts might encounter on the Red Planet. Mars scientists have been expecting epic solar storms since the sun entered a period of peak activity called solar maximum earlier this year. Over the past month, NASA’s Mars … Read more
Many more people around the world than usual have recently been able to see the Northern and Southern Lights overhead with the naked eye. This unusual event was caused by a very strong solar storm, which affected the movement of the Earth’s magnetic field. The sun reaches its maximum point of activity in an eleven-year … Read more