Coronal holes on the sun can release jets of charged particles that may interfere with Earth’s atmosphere In a NASA photo that made the rounds on social media last week, the sun appeared to smile for the camera. The image, taken by the space agency’s Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite, was shared on one of NASA’s Twitter accounts. Social media users have compared the … [Read more...] about NASA’s ‘Smiling Sun’ Image Is a Reminder of the Threat of Solar Wind
Sun
Why hasn’t the sun burned out yet?
Our planet's personal space heater is incredibly efficient. Our sun is a fairly average star in the Milky Way—not the brightest, not the biggest, and only 4.5 billion years old. It’s only unique in that its light and heat sustains all the life on the only inhabited planet we know of in the universe. Luckily for us, it didn’t burn out before we showed up a … [Read more...] about Why hasn’t the sun burned out yet?