NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory
The massive galaxy that houses our star system, along with hundreds of billions of other stars, appears as a shimmery splotch stretching across our night skies on clear, moonless nights. For an ancient people who were rather obsessed with the cosmos, looking up at the Milky Way may have symbolized a goddess that hangs…
We were hoping for something like this to happen. For a brief moment yesterday, the Sun waved to us from afar, telling us that it’s in the midst of a vibrant and dynamic phase of its 11-year cycle when solar eruptions and other phenomena are at their peak and more likely to occur.
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Evan Zucker
REUTERS/Adrees Latif
For the past six years, the Parker Solar Probe has been traveling through the inner solar system to become the first spacecraft to “touch” the Sun. With each close approach to the star, the probe gathers more clues as to what triggers the Sun’s mysterious outbursts.