Solar Flares and You

Solar flares are pretty much known to cause aurorae, power outages, satellite problems, etc. But they can change how elements decay? Really? Apparently so. Go here to read more. So weird....

The Sun and You

Not surprisingly, activity of the Sun has a large impact on the properties of the Earth. The most prominent example are solar flares, which cause aurorae and can significantly damage satellites. A less prominent, but just as important example, is the uppermost atmosphere, which is ionized by UV radiation from the Sun. Not surprisingly, as UV radiation from the Sun drops, so does the thickness of this layer. To learn more, go here. Enjoy!

The Sun is really just another star

Now, while that is far from a provocative statement, it is always nice to get confirmation that other stars are truly like the Sun. Go here to read about how this is the case.

Why did Sun stop making Sun Spots?

Because of changes beneath its surface? Possibly. Go here to read more.

The Sun's Dark Heart

Well, at least according to this article. While it is entirely true that the Sun should have gravitational captured some dark matter particles - assuming, of course, that dark matter is truly composed of massive fundamental particles as currently believed but not yet proven - over its lifetime, but to say this is cooling the Sun's core is more than a bit extreme and speculative. Interesting idea though.

Welcome Solar Dynamics Observatory!

To the suite of satellites studying the Sun. Read more about its capabilities and science goals here.

The Awakening Sun

Bad for satellites, as described here.

The Exploding Sun

Okay, the Sun is not going to explode itself. But look at these images of violent eruptions on the "surface" of the Sun taken by NASA's new Solar Dynamics Observatory and you might be surprised that it isn't.

The Luminescent Sun

NASA recently launched the Solar Dynamics Observatory to study the ever-changing Sun, and here are some of the first results. Impressive, if you ask me.

The ring of fire

It's not just a Johnny Cash song. Inside the Sun, very hot, ionized gas (plasma, which is essentially the same thing as fire), circulates deep below the layer that produces most of the optical light we see (called the photosphere). However, we can infer its properties based on its observable effects when it happens to skim the Sun's "surface." Go here to read how it might be responsible for the very few Sun spots being detected over the last few years.

A stellar iPhone application

Okay, really more of a Solar one but then the pun doesn't work so well. And the Sun is a star, so I'm not incorrect, per se. Go here to read more about it.

NASA's new Solar Satellite

The Solar Dynamics Observatory, was successfully launched last week (Feb. 11). Go here to read all about it.

The Sun is mass of incandescent gas

but there is much more to it then that. Go here to read more about NASA next Sun-studying satellite, the Solar Dynamics Observatory, scheduled to launch today!

New Sunspot

Just because the Sun is in the midst of one of the deepest Solar Minima ever recorded, producing far fewer sunspots than average, does not mean it isn't producing anyway. This weekend, a very large and powerful sunspot formed in the Sun's corona. Go here for more information and some pretty pictures / movies. Enjoy!

July 13th Radio Show: The Sun

Slowly working through to backlog of radio shows I need to put online, now available here is the July 13th episode. This program begins my current discussion of recent scientific results concerning the Solar System and, since it lies at its center, I appropriately start with the Sun. And because it is so close to the Sun, I cover Mercury as well. As always, please email me or leave below any questions, comments, or concerns you might have. Thank you for listening!

Longest Solar Eclipse of the 21st Century Longest Solar Eclipse of the 21st Century

The longest solar eclipse of the century is tomorrow. For more information on this event, go here. The New York Times will actually be blogging this event, which you can follow here. Hope you get a chance to see it. I remember seeing a solar eclipse my freshman year of high school, it was pretty amazing.

Upcoming Solar Cycle

As some of you might remember, about 6 months ago there was a lot of discussion over the utter lack of sunspots being observed at the beginning of this solar cycle. Well, some have been detected, and now NASA has revised its prediction for the upcoming solar cycle. To read more, go here. Enjoy!

Description of December 31st Radio Show: Latest Astronomy News

Long available here, below is a description of the December 31st episode of this radio show, where I discussed the major Astronomical results to come out in December 2006. They were:

• Solar System News: Recent powerful solar flare produced both neutral and charged particles, first time neutral particles detected from such an event; ESA's Venus Express detects hydrogen leaving Venus's atmosphere from the day-side for the first time - gas appears to be result of water being broken down into hydrogen and oxygen in upper atmosphere, and might explain why there is so little water on Venus; NASA's THEMIS satellites detect the opening of a large hole in the Earth's magnetic field due to the interaction with a clump in the solar wind; NASA instrument on India's Chandrayaan-1 Lunar spacecraft measures changes in chemical composition of lunar surface on small physical scales (link, image); next NASA mission to the Moon, the Lunar Reconnaissance Oribter; completes major milestone before April 2009 launch (website); evidence for climate change on Mars resulting from regular changes in the tilt of its orbit around the Sun - deduced from studying patterns of rock layers in a large crater (link); results from ESA's Mars Express satellite suggests that peculiar light-toned deposits result on ground water bursts onto the surface (link); NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter completes primary mission (website), releases new 3D images of surface (link), and found evidence for carbonite on Martian surface which requires the past presence of neutral or basic water on Mars's surface (article); evidence that site of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander is currently going through a "dry" phase; next NASA mission to Mars - the Mars Science Laboratory - delayed until late 2011 due to cost over-runs, delay expected to have implications for future planetary missions; ongoing debate whether future joint NASA/ESA Solar System mission should be to Jupiter's moon Europa or Saturn's moon Titan; recent flybys of Saturn's moon Enceladus by Cassini show continuing activity and of Titan show evidence for volcanos spewing ice in to this moon's atmosphere; Swift satellite detects X-ray emission from Solar System comets (link)
• Wednesday Morning Astronomer: Yes, an ice cream carton hurtling towards the Earth at 99% the speed of light would be a very bad thing (article); no, the astronomical theory for what Voorwerp might be is not an attempt to upstage the Dutch schoolteacher who found it, but is an attempt to understand a still very bizarre object (link); star formation in the universe is actually on a decline, and if the current thinking on the universe is correct, the ultimate fate is a starless night sky - a very depressing prospect indeed (link); and I think it is definitely a good thing that the more we look, the less we understand (link).
• Calendar of upcoming Astronomy/Science events in the greater Poughkeepsie/New York area.
• More News: Evidence that brown dwarfs form like stars not planets (link); up and coming sub-mm radio interferometer ALMA gets its first telescope; astronomers discover the two faintest brown dwarfs known (link); analog to young Sun identified by CoRoT satellite (link); turbulence in proto-planetary disk important in determining how planets form (link); Spitzer images massive stars destroying proto-planetary disks of their neighbors (link); Dutch undergrads discover first extrasolar planet orbiting a fast-rotating star (link); Hubble Space Telescope discovers carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet (link) and measure the size of a different extrasolar planet (link); proposal to look for moons around extrasolar planets through the "wobbles" they create in their orbits (link); new technique proposal to look for water in the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet; direct imaging of extrasolar planets is Science magazine's #2 breakthrough of the year; Kepler spacecraft - which will search for Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars - shipped to Florida (just launched last week!!!)

As always, please post below or email any questions, comments, or concerns you might have. Thank you for listening!

Description of November 12th Radio Show: Supernovae

Already available here, below is the description of the November 12th edition of this radio show, whose topic was supernovae. This program covered:

• Calendar of upcoming Astronomy/science events in the greater New York / Poughkeepsie area.
• Interview with Dr. Maryam Modjaz of UC-Berkeley on supernovae (available here).
• News: Flurry of sunspots detected in October signals beginning of new solar cycle; stalagmites in a Chinese cave suggest strength of monsoons connected to solar cycle (article); Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 enters lunar transfer orbit (link), lunar orbit (link); Mars Phoenix Lander succumbs to Martian winter and ceases operation (link); NASA tests motor for launch abort system on future Orion Crew Capsule; possibility that future spacecraft to Mars could generate a magnetic field strong enough to protect it from cosmic rays (link); ESA closer to picking crews for simulated Mars mission; Universal Declaration of Human Rights sent to International Space Station (link); NASA astronomers at Marshall Space Flight Center install all sky monitoring cameras to look for meteor showers; ESO releases deepest ultraviolet image of the sky - detects faint galaxies filled with young, hot stars; ESA announces Second CubeSat workshop; congratulations to students selected to NASA Astronomy Student Ambassadors (for more information, go here)
• Wednesday Morning Astronomer (a response to the Astronomy content of this ESPN article): It is good to have terms for things, even if the name itself doesn't matter (e.g. Plutoid vs. Pluton) and I think an asteroid defense system will cost even more than that. Plus, NASA is working on learning about the chemical composition and structure of asteroids and comets in order to better determine how to destroy them if need be.

If you have any questions or concerns, please email me or leave them below. Hope you enjoy, and thank you very much for listening!

Description of October 15th Radio Show: Star Formation, Planet Formation, and Massive Stars

Long available here, below is the detailed description of this radio show:

• News: Evidence that boundaries of sunspots play an important role in the producing the Solar wind (link); NASA's spacecraft MESSENGER completes second flyby of Mercury, images a substantial portion of Mercury's surface never observed before (link); ESA spacecraft Venus Express observes the Earth to use as a template for studying extrasolar planets; Mars Odyssey shifting orbit around Mars to better measure the spectrum of interesting regions of the Martian surface; Phoenix Mars Lander obtains new samples for study (link); asteroid collides with Earth exactly when and where as predicted; Spitzer spacecraft releases images of Comet Holmes obtained after its eruption last year, show large dust grains ejected during this event; Cassini flew by Saturn's moon Enceladus again last week to better study the plumes emanating from its surface (link), recent flyby of Saturn's moon Titan - the largest moon in the Solar system - by Cassini reveals that Titan's atmosphere can hold onto Saturn's magnetic field as it passes through (link), and Cassini images a massive cyclone at Saturn's North Pole similar to the one long seen at Saturn's South Pole (link); IBEX spacecraft to study particle accelerated at the outer boundary of the Solar System ready for launch (link); ESA has delived all of its instruments to the Indian Lunar satellite Chandrayaan-1; new crew departed for International Space Station; congrats to Dr. Ellen Ochoa, deputy director of NASA's Johnson Space Center, for being the first female recipient of the "Engineer of the Year" award given at the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference; research at Queen's University in UK developing a robotic system to repair satellites in space (link); ESA to test Intermediate Experiment Vehicle in 2012; NASA examines heat shield from Apollo mission to help design new lunar crew vehicle (link); NASA studying possibility of putting a large liquid mirror on the Moon; NASA issues 2008 edition of Spinoff magazine, available here.
• Wednesday Morning Astronomer (an Astronomer's response to this ESPN column): I agree that commercial rocket launches are a long, way, away from being a viable alternative. However, the lack of sunspots seen recently from the Sun isn't really a problem, and the reversal of Earth's magnetic field is going to take 100s if not 1000s of year, not occur during 2012.
• Calendar of upcoming events in the greater New York / Poughkeepsie area.
• Molecular Clouds and the Formation of Stars and Planets: Observation of a molecular cloud by astronomers in the Canary Islands discovers naphthalene, a precursor to amino acids (link); Spitzer observations of star forming region W5 show evidence for star formation being triggered by stars which just formed in the area (link); a similar process believed to be occurring in the star forming region NGC 346 located in the Small Magellanic Cloud (link); this is evidence that the Solar System was the result of a shock wave collided with its progenitor gas cloud (link); infrared survey of the Milky Way done using Spitzer space telescope detects stars in all phases of their creation - from the proto-stars created by the collapse of their natal molecular clouds to young stars blowing holes in the interstellar medium after they "turn on" (link; evidence for stars forming in the gas stripped from a galaxy as it collides with another galaxy (link); ESO's Very Large Telescope uses optical interferometry to study the structure of the disk formed by the collapse of a dense cloud of gas into a star(link); evidence for water being formed and destroyed in the outflows of material from this disk as it collapses onto the central star; chemical compositions of comets suggests that material flowed from the inner part of this disk to the outer part as our Sun formed (link 1, link 2); isotopic abundance of Oxygen in early Solar system changed during the formation of the Sun (link); asteroids in the Solar System believed to contain carbon molecules which can survive entry into the Earth's atmosphere and possibly be building blocks for life on the Earth (link); gap observed in the gas and dust disk around a young star believed to be evidence for a planet forming there (link); future telescopes believed might be able to detect disk gaps formed by planets as small as Mars (link); astronomers at University of Toronto might have made an actual picture of a planet orbiting another star (link); bizzare new exoplanet found - not sure if it is a planet or a brown dwarf (link); evidence for recent collision between two planets seen around distant star BD+20 307 (link); most massive star in Milky Way weiged in at over 110 times that of the Sun (link).

Hope you enjoyed this program and, as always, any and all feedback is appreciated. Again, thank you very much for listening.