NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) have worked together on multiple missions to advance our understanding of the Sun and its effect on Earth. To continue this collaboration, the two agencies formed the ESA/NASA Lower Thermosphere-Ionosphere Science, or ENLoTIS, working group in May 2022.
For the first time in history, a spacecraft has touched the Sun. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has now flown through the Sun’s upper atmosphere – the corona – and sampled particles and magnetic fields there.
Sun, Our Sun, Earth’s Space Environment
The continuously expanding solar wind begins in our Sun and doesn’t stop until after it reaches the edge of the heliosphere.
As NASA prepares to send astronauts and spacecraft long distances through space, scientists are keeping an eye on the weather. Space weather.
The Parker Solar Probe will help scientists learn more about the solar wind, an exotic stew of magnetic forces, plasma and particles.
People around the world look up and see our Sun every day. But through a space telescope, it looks nothing like it does from down on the ground. The surface dances with arches of solar material that reach up into the solar atmosphere – an environment of charged particles and magnetic fields unlike... Read More
Sun, Our Sun, Earth’s Space Environment
High up in the clear blue noontime sky, the sun appears to be much the same day-in, day-out, year after year.
But astronomers have long known that this is not true. The sun does change. Properly-filtered telescopes reveal a fiery disk often speckled with dark sunspots. Sunspots are strongly... Read More
Sun, Our Sun, Earth’s Space Environment
Intense solar activity such as sunspots and solar flares subsides during solar minimum, but that doesn’t mean the sun becomes dull. Solar activity simply changes form.
Imagine standing around a roaring campfire, roasting s’mores. You feel the warmth of the flames as the marshmallows crackle. Now back away. You get cooler, right?
That's not how it works on the sun. The visible surface of the sun has a temperature of 10,000° F. Backing away from the inferno... Read More