Martian Auroras

Auroras happen when energetic particles -- usually from the solar wind -- interact with the atmosphere. Here on Earth, they're most often found near the poles, where our strong global magnetic field converges, funneling particles down from space. Our neighbor Mars has no global magnetic field.  (Image credit: UAE Space Agency/EMM/EMUS and NASA/MAVEN/IUVS; via Physics Today) Read the full article

A Triangular Prominence

Our Sun is a maelstrom of light and heat, a constant battlefield for plasma and magnetic fields. This recent prominence, captured by Andrea Vanoni and others, bore a striking triangular shape.  (Image credit: A. Vanoni; via APOD) Read the full article

The Solar Corona in Detail

The sun's corona -- its outer atmosphere -- is usually impossible to see, since it's far outshone by the rest of the sun. But during a total solar eclipse, the moon blocks out all but the vibrant, wispy corona. (Image credit: P. Hart; via APOD) Read the full article

Solar Filament Eruption

From Earth, we rarely glimpse the violent flows of our home star. Here, a filament erupts from the photosphere creating a coronal mass ejection, captured in ultraviolet wavelengths by the Solar Dynamics Observatory.  (Image credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO; via APOD) Read the full article

A Shallow Origin for the Sun's Magnetic Field

The Sun's complex magnetic field drives its 11-year solar activity cycle in ways we have yet to understand. During active periods, more sunspots appear, along with roiling flows within the Sun that scientists track through helioseismology.  (Image credit: NASA/SDO/AIA/LMSAL; research credit: G. Vasil et al.; via Physics World) Read the full article

The Solar Corona in Stunning Detail

The ESA's Solar Orbiter captured this beautifully detailed video of our sun's corona last September. The Solar Orbiter took this footage from about 43 million kilometers away, a third of the distance between the sun and the Earth.  (Video and image credit: ESA; via Colossal) Read the full article

Making Magnetic Crystals From Ferrofluids

Ferrofluids are a great platform for exploring liquids and magnetism. Here, researchers trap ferrofluid droplets along an oil-water meniscus and then apply a magnetic field that makes the drops repel one another.  (Video and image credit: H. Khattak et al.) Read the full article

A Comet's Tail

A comet's tail changes from day-to-day depending on how much material the comet is losing and how strong the solar wind it's facing is. (Image credit: Shengyu Li & Shaining; via APOD) Read the full article

Our Sun's Corona Unfurled

This clever image is actually two solar eclipses stacked atop one another. The bottom half of the image shows the sun's corona -- its wispy, dramatic outer atmosphere -- during the a 2017 total solar eclipse, and top half shows a 2023 total solar eclipse. (Image credit: P. Ward; via APOD) Read the full article

Gigapixel Supernova

Eleven thousand years ago, a star exploded in the constellation Vela, blowing off its outer layers in a spectacular shock wave that remains visible today. Today's image is a piece of a 1.3-gigapixel composite image of the supernova remnant. (Image credit: CTIO/NOIRLab/DOE/NSF/AURA; via Colossal) Read the full article

Kelvin-Helmholtz and the Sun

Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities (KHI) are a favorite among fluid dynamicists. They resemble the curls of a breaking ocean wave -- not a coincidence, since KHI create those ocean waves to begin with -- and show up in picturesque clouds, Martian lava coils, and Jovian cloud bands. (Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/NRL/Guillermo Stenborg and Evangelos Paouris; research credit: E. Paouris et al.; via Gizmodo) Read the full article

The Unusual Auroras of Mars

Earth, Saturn, and Jupiter have auroras at their poles, generated by the interaction of their global magnetic fields with the solar wind. Mars has no global magnetic field, only remnants of one frozen into areas of its crust; yet it, too, has auroras.  (Image credit: R. Lillis et al.; research credit: C. Bowers et al. and B. Johnston et al.; via APS Physics) Read the full article

"Emerald Roots"

As charged particles from the solar wind bombard the upper atmosphere, a glowing plasma forms and dances in the sky. The green light of the plasma reflects off moistened sand, rippled by the passage of wind and tide.  (Image credit: L. Tenti; via 2023 Astronomy POTY) Read the full article

"A Sun Question"

The sun's surface and atmosphere are endlessly dynamic, with magnetic lines, plasma, and convection creating a constant churn. In this photo by astrophotographer Eduardo Schaberger Poupeau, a curving question-mark-like filament appears above the sun's surface. (Image credit: E. Poupeau; via 2023 Astronomy POTY) Read the full article