Archives for the 'Sun' Category
A Sunspot!
Published on 24 Sep 2008 at 4:13 pm.
1 Comment.
Filed under Sun.
A few days ago, a sunspot appeared on the Sun. It was a nice one, too. It was a classic bipolar spot group (with one end a magnetic north pole, and the other end a magnetic south pole). A lot of people got excited. After all, the Sun has been in a protracted solar minimum, […]
An Unspotted Sun?
Published on 3 Sep 2008 at 2:35 pm.
6 Comments.
Filed under Sun, amusement.
Just for fun, Miki, from Rampup Solutions, sent me a link to this astronomy news spoof. I found it hilarious. However, it gives me something to blog about. This past month continued the unusually long period of extremely low solar activity that I had written about nearly two months ago.
The Sun […]
A Long, Quiet Solar Minimum
Published on 11 Jul 2008 at 3:21 pm.
18 Comments.
Filed under Sun.
My previous post was about how I’ve not been blogging much lately. The Sun’s been pretty quiet lately, too. In fact, there has been very little to look at on the Sun for a while. It has now been quite a long time since I’ve taken my students out to look at […]
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The 23rd Cycle’s Last Gasp?
Published on 28 Mar 2008 at 12:05 pm.
7 Comments.
Filed under Sun.
The Sun goes through a cycle of sunspot activity that lasts about 11 years. It isn’t an exact period, sometimes it is a little short, say 10 years, and sometimes a little long, as in 12 years. These sunspot cycles have been studied continuously for nearly 250 years. The Sun just started […]
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The 24th Cycle
Published on 6 Jan 2008 at 8:03 am.
2 Comments.
Filed under Sun.
For the earliest days of telescopes, astronomers have known that the Sun has spots. But, the number of sunspots is not constant. Individual spots come and go. In 1843, Heinrich Schwabe noted that the number of sunspots seems to go through a pattern that lasts a bit over a decade. The […]
The Voyagers and the Heliosphere
Published on 13 Nov 2006 at 5:42 pm.
1 Comment.
Filed under Sun, interstellar medium.
Far from the Sun, two tiny spacecraft sail onward heading out of the Solar System into interstellar space. Voyager 1, is now a distance of just about 101 Astronomical Units from the Sun, and Voyager 2 is over 81 Astronomical Units out. Both spacecraft were launched in 1977 to study the outer planets of our Solar System. […]
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Watching the Mercury Transit
Published on 8 Nov 2006 at 10:44 am.
No Comments.
Filed under Sun, planets, skywatching.
Don’t forget! Mercury will transit the Sun today. You can read my earlier post on the transit to find out more about it. While not a once in a lifetime opportunity, it is still rare enough that you should go take a look.
However, remember that looking at the Sun is dangerous if you don’t know […]
