Blog Archive

IRIS safely in orbit, ready to eye sun's atmosphere

Posted by Jason Davis on 2013/06/28 06:01 CDT | 1 comments

IRIS, the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph spacecraft, was launched from Orbital Science Corporation's Stargazer carrier aircraft over the Pacific Ocean at 7:27 p.m PDT.

Comet PANSTARRS, Earth, and a coronal mass ejection as seen from STEREO-B

Comet PANSTARRS from the other side of the Sun!

Posted by Karl Battams on 2013/03/14 05:21 CDT | 8 comments

Comet PANSTARRS is delighting northern hemisphere viewers right now. But it's also big, bright, and beautiful to the STEREO spacecraft.

Transit of Deimos, Curiosity sol 42 (aligned)

Curiosity catches sunspots along with Phobos and Deimos transits

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/10/03 07:15 CDT | 2 comments

Curiosity has been shooting photos of the Sun as Phobos and Deimos cross its face, and -- as far as I can tell -- captured sunspots as well.

Cool video: Jupiter, its moons, a comet, and...the Sun?

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/05/16 11:45 CDT | 1 comments

Here's a neat video posted by SungrazerComets (the Twitter identity of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory's Sungrazing Comets website) this morning. It's an animation of images taken by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) on May 13 and 14, when Jupiter was passing through solar conjunction

Solar storm in progress

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/03/07 09:27 CST

Last night the Sun unleashed a large coronal mass ejection in our direction. Here is a compilation of images from SOHO's two LASCO cameras, plus a prediction from the new space weather prediction model that I learned about at the American Geophysical Union in December. The storm will arrive at Earth on March 8.

A recap of Comet Lovejoy

Posted by Jason Davis on 2011/12/22 10:45 CST | 1 comments

A timeline of one of the most memorable solar events in recent memory: the observations by six Sun-observing spacecraft of Comet Lovejoy making its perihelion passage.

Sungrazing Comet Lovejoy seen in SOHO LASCO C3

Video: Comet Lovejoy entered SOHO's LASCO C3 field of view this morning!

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/12/14 09:37 CST

An animation of comet Lovejoy entering the field of view of one of SOHO's Sun-monitoring cameras.

Good news, everyone: We're getting as good at space weather forecasts as we are at Earth weather forecasts

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/12/06 02:39 CST

Emily reports from the Fall 2011 American Geophyisical Union meeting about advancements in space weather prediction.

C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy) is shown here in a series of images taken by Rob Kaufman Victoria, Australia.

Sungrazing with Lovejoy's Comet

Posted by Jason Davis on 2011/12/06 10:42 CST

Observations of the newly sighted Kreutz sungrazer comet C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy) from the ground and from SOHO (a joint NASA/ESA satellite) and STEREO (NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory).

SOHO's view of the Sun and Jupiter, April 5, 2011

Spotting Jupiter's Moons...with a Solar Telescope!?

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/04/06 12:27 CDT

I was astounded to learn this morning that SOHO can not only see Jupiter, it can actually resolve Jupiter's moons (at least its two outer ones) as points of light separate from their planet!

Mars conjunction today: Cool SOHO/SDO video

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/02/04 11:41 CST

Today Mars made its closest approach to the Sun -- as seen from Earth, that is. Why is this important?

Hinode views an annular solar eclipse, January 4, 2010

Solar eclipses from space: Hinode and SDO

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/01/06 11:33 CST

Two spacecraft that keep their ever-watchful eyes on the Sun -- NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and JAXA's Hinode -- were doing their thing, when something large wandered past: the Moon.

What's up in the solar system in January 2010

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2010/01/04 01:29 CST

While we don't have Moon bases, we do have plenty of spacecraft. Before I get into my more detailed look at the activities of the 20-odd spacecraft wandering about the solar system, I thought I'd look ahead to 2010 more generally and see what the year has in store for us.