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Russian Scientists Expect Powerful Solar Flares
Moscow, Russia (RIA Novosti) Dec 07, 2006 Russia's geophysical forecast center said Wednesday it expects powerful solar flares, vast explosions in the sun's atmosphere around sunspots, to occur in the near future. Solar flares can expel billion-ton clouds of electrified gas or plasma into space at a speed of 1 million miles per hour. Eruptions from the sun can damage satellites and disrupt electrical and communications systems on Earth. "An X9 solar flare was registered last Tuesday. Over 30 years of regular X-ray observations of the sun, only about 25 powerful flares have been registered, and they had never previously been observed in the solar minimum [the lowest point of the sun's 11-year activity cycle]. This is surprising, because normally such flares occur at the peak of the sun's activity," the center said. Source: RIA Novosti Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links the missing link Solar Science News at SpaceDaily
Measuring A Magnetosphere
Mauna Kea HI (SPX) Nov 29, 2006Using the ESPaDOnS spectropolarimeter installed on the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope (Mauna Kea, Hawaii), an international team of researchers, led by two French astronomers (C. Catala, LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, and J.F. Donati, LATT, Observatoire Midi-Pyrenees), has just discovered a magnetic field on tau Bootis, a star orbited by a giant planet on a close-in orbit. |
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