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Explanation: Sometimes, a total eclipse is a good time to eye the Sun. Taking advantage of an unusual juxtaposition of Earth, Moon and Sun, the featured image depicts the total solar eclipse that occurred last month as it appeared -- nearly simultaneously -- from both Earth and space. The innermost image shows the total eclipse from the ground, with the central pupil created by the bright Sun covered by a comparatively dark Moon. Surrounding the blocked solar disk is the tenuous corona of Sun imaged in white light, easily visible from the ground only during an eclipse. Normally, this corona...

Earth is often struck by solar eruptions. These eruptions consist of energetic particles that are hurled away from the Sun into space, where those directed towards Earth encounter the magnetic field around our planet. When these eruptions interact with Earth's magnetic field they cause beautiful auroras. A poetic phenomenon that reminds us, that our closest star is an unpredictable neighbor. When the Sun pours out gigantic amounts of hot plasma during the large solar eruptions, it may have severe consequences on Earth. Solar eruptions are, however, nothing compared to the eruption we see on other stars, the so-called 'superflares'. Superflares...

Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA). Acknowledgment: R. Sahai and J. Trauger (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This is a final act of celestial beauty before the long fade into cosmic history. Invisibly buried in the centre of this colourful swirl of gas is a dying star, roughly the same mass as the sun. As a star ages, the nuclear reactions that keep it shining begin to falter. This uncertain energy generation causes the stars to pulsate in an irregular way, casting off its outer layers into space. As the star sheds these outer gases, the super-hot core...

Those who think the political war on carbon will cool the globe or keep climate stable need to study climate history. Temperatures on Earth dance to a cyclic rhythm every hour, every day, every month, every season, every year, and to every beat of the sun-spot and glacial cycles. The daily solar cycle causes continual changes in temperature for every spot on Earth. It produces the frosts at dawn, the mid-day heat and the cooling at sunset. It is regulated by rotation of the Earth. Superimposed on the daily solar cycle is the monthly lunar cycle, driven by the orbit...

Conway- Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton, at an editorial board meeting Tuesday, sparred with a conservative columnist over Benghazi and spoke about how she'd address opioid addiction. The former first lady, secretary of state and senator from New York is running neck-and-neck with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the New Hampshire Democratic primary polls. A third challenger, Martin O'Malley, is a distant third. The primary is Feb. 9. Clinton took New Hampshire in 2008 and was the first woman to win a major party's presidential primary, but ultimately the nomination went to Barack Obama. Before getting into the details of...

The coconut has developed a bit of a faddish following in the West. Today, devotees add coconut oil to coffee, dab it on acne and, following Gwyneth Paltrow's example, swirl it around in their mouths to fight tooth decay. Starbucks has launched a coconut-milk latte. And the coconut-water business has surged to $400 million, with a little help from Madonna and Rihanna. No one would be more delighted at the coconut's rising star than August Engelhardt, a sun-worshipping German nudist and history's most radical cocovore. From 1902 to 1919, Engelhardt lived on a beautiful South Pacific island, eating nothing but...

Phil PlaitNovember 16, 2015 A new study says that violent space weather that could cost $2 trillion in damage is more common than previously thought In the years 774 and 993, the Earth was attacked from space. Not by aliens, but by a natural event—and it was very, very powerful. Whatever it was, it subtly altered the chemistry of our planet’s atmosphere, creating trace amounts of radioactive elements like chlorine-36, beryllium-10, and carbon-14. And those provide the clue to what the event was: Those isotopes are created when high-energy protons slam into our air. That means the source must have...

New studies flip climate-change notions upside down The sun will go into "hibernation" mode around 2030, and it has already started to get sleepy. At the Royal Astronomical Society's annual meeting in July, Professor Valentina Zharkova of Northumbria University in the UK confirmed it - the sun will begin its Maunder Minimum (Grand Solar Minimum) in 15 years. Other scientists had suggested years ago that this change was imminent, but Zharkova's model is said to have near-perfect accuracy. So what is a "solar minimum"? Our sun doesn't maintain a constant intensity. Instead, it cycles in spans of approximately 11 years....

Regarding the Middle East and its oil, the late Sheikh Rashid Bin Saed Al Maktoum, longtime Emir of Dubai and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, once famously remarked: “My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel.” It’s an apt reminder of the finite nature of oil resources, and, of course, the wealth it brings. But, and this is what the Sheikh was getting at, it’s also a call for prudence and thoughtful...

No aircraft were allowed to take off from airports in southern and central Sweden due to a massive geomagnetic solar flare storm causing problems for radar systems. Ulf Wallin, press spokesperson at Swedavia, the organization managing Sweden's airports, told TT that airports at Landvetter in Gothenburg and Arlanda and Bromma in Stockholm were affected. "Those airplanes that are in the air are allowed to land at the airports they're going to, but no planes are taking off," he said. The problems began at around 3.30pm on Wednesday. An hour later, traffic had begun to return to normal, but it was...

SCIENTISTS claim we are in for a decade-long freeze as the sun slows down solar activity by up to 60 per cent. A team of European researchers have unveiled a scientific model showing that the Earth is likely to experience a “mini ice age” from 2030 to 2040 as a result of decreased solar activity. Their findings will infuriate environmental campaigners who argue by 2030 we could be facing increased sea levels and flooding due to glacial melt at the poles. However, at the National Astronomy Meeting in Wales, Northumbria University professor Valentina Zharkova said fluctuations an 11-year cycle of...

DOUBLE ECLIPSE OF THE SUN: On Sept. 13th, the sun was eclipsed--twice! No one on Earth has ever seen anything like it. Indeed, it was only visible from Earth orbit. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) recorded the event: The double eclipse began around 06:30 UT when Earth passed directly between the sun and SDO. The observatory watched as the body of our planet moved slowly across the face of the sun, producing a near black-out. When the Earth finally moved aside about an hour later, another eclipse was in progress. This time, the Moon was in the way. A movie...

It sounds like a scene from a disaster movie – mass power failures, plane crashes, satellite disruptions, and train derailments. These are some of the threats modern society would face in the case of a massive solar storm, according to a new document released by the U.K. Department of Business, Innovation and Skills. The “Space Weather Preparedness Strategy” outlines the disturbances that could be caused by unpredictable solar weather. The most striking find from the report is the fact that a country would have only a 12-hour warning period before the storm would hit the planet. The worst possible scenario...

Over 900 songwriters or singers have written or sung about weather, the most common being Bob Dylan, followed by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, according to British researchers, writing in the journal Weather. Sixteen percent, or 48, of The Beatles' 308 songs are weather-related. Weather plays a powerful role in our lives so it should be no surprise that the theme is played out in the music songwriters and singers produce, researchers said. "I think they simply wrote about aspects of the world that they enjoyed or inspired them. They have lots of good catchy music tunes, so that helps...

ublished on Jul 10, 2015 This Members-Only content from Suspicious0bservers.org has been shared on YouTube because it describes and frames what is probably the single most significant heliophysics discovery of the year. The subject of a coming grand minimum, despite some of the experts' concurrence and the data suggesting only one near-term outcome for the sun, has drawn controversy from many in the heliophysics community; I have fallen on the side of a coming grand minimum and am not shy about my praise for this mathematical model. I don't like most models; they tend not to match observational data -...

The Earth could be headed for a 'mini ice age' researchers have warned. A new study claims to have cracked predicting solar cycles - and says that between 2020 and 2030 solar cycles will cancel each other out. This, they say, will lead to a phenomenon known as the 'Maunder minimum' - which has previously been known as a mini ice age when it hit between 1646 and 1715, even causing London's River Thames to freeze over. The new model of the Sun's solar cycle is producing unprecedentedly accurate predictions of irregularities within the Sun's 11-year heartbeat. It draws on...

Climate experts warn the amount of light and warmth released by the sun is nosediving to levels "not seen for centuries". They fear a repeat of the so-called 'Maunder Minimum' which triggered Arctic winter whiteouts and led to the River Thames freezing 300 years ago. The Met Office-led study warns although the effect will be offset by recent global warming, Britain faces years of unusually cold winters. A spokesman said: "A return to low solar activity not seen for centuries could increase the chances of cold winters in Europe and eastern parts of the United States but wouldn't halt global...

Having healed the world, The has turned his attention to the threat posed to national security by the sun...

The sun produced its biggest solar flare so far this year, a huge blast that caused temporary radio blackouts throughout the Pacific. The X-class solar flare - considered the most powerful category of sun storm - erupted Tuesday from a sunspot called Active Region 2339 (AR2339), peaking at 6:11 p.m. EDT (2211 GMT), according to Space.com. The blast, however, is unlikely to cause major problems back on Earth. "Given the impulsive nature of this event, as well as the source location on the eastern limb of the sun, we are not expecting a radiation storm at Earth," scientists with the...

The sun is almost completely blank. The main driver of all weather and climate, the entity which occupies 99.86% of all of the mass in our solar system, the great ball of fire in the sky has gone quiet again during what is likely to be the weakest sunspot cycle in more than a century. The sun's X-ray output has flatlined in recent days and NOAA forecasters estimate a scant 1% chance of strong flares in the next 24 hours. Not since cycle 14 peaked in February 1906 has there been a solar cycle with fewer sunspots. We are currently...