Archives for the 'Sun' Category
Watching the Mercury Transit
Published on 8 Nov 2006 at 10:44 am.
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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 […]
Read ‘Watching the Mercury Transit’
STEREO on the Sun
Published on 26 Oct 2006 at 7:41 pm.
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Filed under NASA, Sun.
Last night, October 25, a Delta II rocket lifted off from Pad 17B at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.  It was carrying twin NASA spacecraft on a mission to study our nearest star, the Sun.  The acronym selected for this mision is STEREO (standing for Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory), and it is quite aprospos because these […]
Holding the Sun up
Published on 7 Oct 2006 at 7:57 pm.
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Filed under Sun.
The other day, someone asked me where the Sun’s energy comes from. Well, the simple answer is that it comes from nuclear fusion in its core. But, as with all things, real life is a bit more complicated. How does energy get into the Sun so that nuclear fusion can release it? […]
The Death of the Sun
Published on 5 Jun 2006 at 1:24 pm.
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Filed under Sun.
The Sun is dying. Oh, it won’t happen tomorrow, or the next day, but it will happen. Nothing lasts forever. Despite what the ancients believed, the heavens are not unchanging and eternal.
Currently, the Sun is sort of stable. It maintains this stabilty through energy releaed in nuclear fusion in its core. This energy ballances the […]
Some Solar Statistics
Published on 25 May 2006 at 6:25 pm.
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Filed under Sun.
The Sun is big. It’s bright, too. But, how big and bright is it? Very! Well, the astrophysicist in me wants numbers! I know that at least a few of my readers also like to put numbers to things. So here are some solar statistics for you.
The Sun has […]
Solar and Lunar Atmospheres
Published on 13 Mar 2006 at 8:11 pm.
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Filed under Sun, moon.
The Moon is an airless world. The Moon’s gravity is insufficient for it to hold onto an atmosphere of any consequence. There are a few atoms hanging around, and lunar scientists talk about a “lunar atmosphere,†but it is so thin that it shouldn’t really count as an atmosphere at all. In fact, you get […]
