European Association for Astronomy Education

Source: ESA

Proba-2 is a small but innovative member of ESA’s spacecraft fleet, crammed with experimental technologies. In its first eight months of life it has already returned more than 90 000 images of the Sun.(read more)

Source: NASA/SDO

An erupting prominence observed by SDO on March 30, 2010.
The 29 MB movie takes a while to download, but it is worth the wait.
Credit: NASA/SDO.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory is beaming back stunning new images of the sun, revealing our own star as never seen before. Even veteran solar physicists say they are amazed by the data. Movies and images may be found in today’s story from Science@NASA. (read more)

Source: ESA

Polar skies glowed with ghostly auroras last week during the biggest geomagnetic storm of 2010. The event owed its origin to a solar eruption a few days earlier – revealed here in high-speed detail by ESA’s small Sun-watcher Proba-2.(read more)

Source: Science@NASA

In yesterday’s issue of Science, NASA solar physicist David Hathaway reports that the top of the sun’s Great Conveyor Belt has been running at record-high speeds for the past five years.

“I believe this could explain the unusually deep solar minimum we’ve been experiencing,” says Hathaway. “The high speed of the conveyor belt challenges existing models of the solar cycle and it has forced us back to the drawing board for new ideas.”

The Great Conveyor Belt is a massive circulating current of fire (hot plasma) within the Sun. It has two branches, north and south, each taking about 40 years to perform one complete circuit. Researchers believe the turning of the belt controls the sunspot cycle. (read more)

Source: NASA

Imagine holding the entire sun in the palm of your hand. Now you can. A new iPhone app developed by NASA-supported programmers delivers a live global view of the sun directly to your cell phone. Users can fly around the star, zoom in on active regions, and monitor solar activity.(read more)