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"Solar Rossby waves are gigantic in size, with wavelengths comparable to the solar radius," study co-author Laurent Gizon, of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, said in a statement. (The average radius of the sun is a whopping 432,450 miles, or 696,000 kilometers.) Even so, these waves move very slowly, with shallow troughs and peaks, so they aren't always easy to detect, especially amid the other swirls and disturbances on a body as lively as the sun. … Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the University of Göttingen (both in Germany), New York University...

In linking to my sunspot update this week, there has been a lot of speculation at the climate website WattsUpWithThat that the next solar cycle has begun...which suggested that this sunspot was the first such sunspot this cycle, was not quite accurate however. This sunspot with an opposite polarity, which decayed so quickly that it did not rate getting a sunspot number, was not the first... The grand minimum of the 1600s, dubbed the Maunder Minimum in honor of the scientist who first identified it, was a century where almost no sunspots were visible. There was no apparent solar cycle....

A massive "hole" on the surface of the sun has unleashed a strong solar wind that scientists say may amp up the northern lights in some areas of the U.S. and could disrupt satellite communications over the next few days. Data from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory revealed a vast region where the sun's magnetic field has opened up, creating a gap in the sun's outer atmosphere, called the corona. This region, also known as a coronal hole, allows charged particles to escape and flow toward Earth in an increased solar wind. As a result, the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center...

Is the mini Ice age upon us? If the solar minimum is an indicator, then yes, we may well be entering one. Very long but well worth the watch

It’s what scientists have termed a ‘grand minimum’ — a particularly low point in what is otherwise a steady 11-year cycle. Over this cycle, the Sun’s tumultuous heart races and rests. At its high point, the nuclear fusion at the Sun’s core forces more magnetic loops high into its boiling atmosphere — ejecting more ultraviolet radiation and generating sunspots and flares. When it’s quiet, the Sun’s surface goes calm. It ejects less ultraviolet radiation. Now scientists have scoured the skies and history for evidence of an even greater cycle amid these cycles. It’s what scientists have termed a ‘grand minimum’...

The White House plans to withdraw Kathleen Hartnett White's nomination to head the Council on Environmental Quality, a White House official confirmed to CNN Saturday. Hartnett White, who would have overseen environmental and energy policies across the government, had described the belief in "global warming" as a "kind of paganism" for "secular elites" during a September 2016 interview on "The Right Perspective," an online conservative radio show. She has also said the goal of climate activists and the United Nations was an all-powerful, one-world government and "planetary management," KFile reported. President Donald Trump announced Hartnett White's nomination in October and...

Fewer sunspots (weaker solar winds), allow more cosmic rays to enter the Earth’s atmosphere to ionize aerosol molecules, which condense into clouds that cause cooling. More sunspots have the opposite effect — fewer clouds — warmer surface temperatures. Whether present cooling continues or not, is there any reason at all to panic? No, and by the same token, when that good old global warming resumes — as it undoubtedly will along with intermittent cool-downs — let’s remember present conditions and be doubly grateful.

Post a seven day forecast for Christmas week at your locale.

NASA’s own data is showing that the star our globe revolves around is dimming. With no sunspots reported in 96 days, the sun is going dark and the evidence could point to an approaching ice age. As the sun gets successively more blank with each day, due to lack of sunspots, it is also dimming, says the website Watts Up With That? According to data from NASA’s Spaceweather, so far in 2017, 96 days (27%) of the days observing the sun have been without sunspots. Today at Cape Canaveral, SpaceXlaunched a new sensor to the International Space Station named TSIS-1....

As the sun gets successively more blank with each day, due to lack of sunspots, it is also dimming. According to data from NASA’s Spaceweather, so far in 2017, 96 days (27%) of the days observing the sun have been without sunspots. Here is the view today from the NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite: Today at Cape Canaveral, SpaceX launched a new sensor to the International Space Station named TSIS-1. Its mission: to measure the dimming of the sun’s irradiance. It will replace the aging SORCE spacecraft. NASA SDO reports that as the sunspot cycle plunges toward its 11-year minimum,...

Solar minimum surprisingly constantMore than half a century of observation yields new discoveryNATIONAL INSTITUTES OF NATURAL SCIENCESUsing more than half a century of observations, Japanese astronomers have discovered that the microwaves coming from the Sun at the minimums of the past five solar cycles have been the same each time, despite large differences in the maximums of the cycles.Solar microwave observation telescopes in 1957 (top left) and today (bottom left). Fluctuations observed during 60 years of solar microwave monitoring (top right) and the solar microwave spectrum at each solar minimum (bottom right). The background is full solar disk images...

As the sun moves through its 11-year cycle, it experiences active and quiet periods known as the solar maximum and solar minimum. While solar maximum can present itself in a host of different ways, a new study has found that microwaves emitted during the solar minimum have largely remained the same for more than half a century. Astronomers in Japan have been continuously monitoring solar microwaves across four-frequencies since 1957. This began at the Toyokawa Branch of the Research Institute of Atmospherics, Nagoya University, and was later relocated in 1994 to the NAOj Nobeyama Campus. In a new study, researchers...

A NASA spacecraft watching the sun has captured a rare view of a true space oddity: something scientists call an "encircling filament" near a "hole" in Earth's parent star. The filament was photographed by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory between Oct. 29 and Oct. 31, and appears as a tendril of dark material surrounding an active region on the sun's surface. "Only a handful of times before have we seen one shaped like a circle," NASA officials wrote in an image description. "The black area to the left of the brighter active region is a coronal hole, a magnetically open region...

Experts are considering ploughing sulphate aerosols into the upper atmosphere which would cause some of the suns rays to be reflected back out into space. This could potentially cool the Earth down and help counter the effects of climate change, scientists say. The move would also help reduce coral bleaching and help calm powerful storms. James Crabbe, from the University of Bedfordshire, is leading the study and his initial results suggest the plan could help cool the planet. He told New Scientist: “Corals are the rainforests of the sea, and if you lose them the impacts on ecosystems and people...

The spacecraft will have to survive temperatures as high as 2,500 Fahrenheit (1,371 Celsius) NASA Scientists have unveiled the Parker Solar Probe at a laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, on Monday (September 25). This latest spacecraft is being prepared to make an unprecedented plunge into the sun's atmosphere. "We're going to go into the corona, which is the home to many mysteries that have baffled scientists for decades and decades," explained project scientist Nicky Fox at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. The spacecraft will have to survive temperatures as high as 2,500 Fahrenheit (1,371 Celsius), impacts by supersonic particles...

A SOLAR STORM IS COMING: On Sept. 4th at approximately 2030 UT, active sunspot AR2673 hurled a CME toward Earth: movie. NOAA analysts are still modeling the cloud's trajectory. At first glance, the CME appears likely to reach our planet on Sept. 6th with the possibility of moderately strong (G2-class) geomagnetic storms when it arrives. Stay tuned for an updated forecast. What a difference a day can make. On Saturday, Sept. 2nd, sunspot AR2673 was an unremarkable speck largely ignored by forecasters. On Sunday, Sept. 3rd, it underwent a furious transformation. AR2673 expanded more than 10-fold in a single day,...

As the Aug. 21 solar eclipse nears, communities within the path of totality are preparing for masses of people traveling in search of the optimal viewing experience. The expected influx has placed an unprecedented task in front of cities and towns that are unaccustomed to large tourist populations. Places like Hopkinsville, Kentucky, are working to transform their communities to prepare for the event. “This is unlike anything this community has ever seen or will probably ever see again,” Hopkinsville Solar Eclipse Marketing and Events Consultant Brooke Jung said. “We’ve got people coming from 42 different states and 18 different countries.”...

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Astronomers want to harness [the Sun's] spacetime-warping gravity as a lens to image the surface of exoplanets in astonishing detail The bluish ring is a distant galaxy whose image has been magnified and warped by the gravity of a reddish galaxy in the foreground Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA Wikimedia Within just a few years, astronomers may at last find a planet that shows signs of life as we know it, in the form of atmospheric gases that betray signs of biological activity. This would be a transformational event for our civilization. But, what would we do next? How could we...

On Aug. 21, 2017, American skywatchers will be treated to a rare and spectacular celestial show — the first total solar eclipse visible from the continental United States in nearly four decades. Next year's "Great American Total Solar Eclipse" will darken skies all the way from Oregon to South Carolina, along a stretch of land about 70 miles (113 kilometers) wide. People who descend upon this "path of totality" for the big event are in for an unforgettable experience, said eclipse expert Jay Pasachoff, an astronomer at Williams College in Massachusetts. "It's a tremendous opportunity," Pasachoff told Space.com. "It's a...