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9 April 2015
New study finds small solar eruptions can have profound effects on unprotected planets
On Dec. 19, 2006, the sun ejected a small, slow-moving puff of solar material. Four days later, this sluggish Coronal Mass Ejection was nevertheless powerful enough to rip away dramatic amounts of oxygen out of Venus’ atmosphere and send it out into space, where it was lost forever. Learning just why a small CME had such a strong impact may have profound consequences for understanding what makes a planet hospitable for life.
2 March 2015
Study of atmospheric ‘froth’ may help GPS communications
Irregularities in Earth’s upper atmosphere can distort GPS signals, Scientists are studying these irregularities to help overcome their effects on communications.
5 January 2015
Measuring the temperature of solar winds
The sun spews forth super-heated, charged particles, collectively called plasma, that fly out into the vacuum of space at speeds of 200 to 400 miles per second (300 to 700 kilometers per second). These waves of plasma make up the solar winds that spread across our solar system.
Traveling across freezing space should suck all the heat from the plasma by the time it nears Earth, but the solar waves detected near our planet are still hot. Scientists think something is happening within the plasma to generate heat.
Astrophysicist Anthony Case of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics calculated the temperatures of the solar winds traveling at different supersonic speeds, or speeds greater than the speed of sound.
21 November 2012
Huge signal-distorting space bubbles spawn along equator as night falls
In our Sun’s most active years, enormous snake-like bubbles of plasma emerge overhead on Earth at nightfall. You can’t see them, but these bubbles can bend and disperse radio waves, interfering with communications networks. Now, a satellite soaring low in Earth’s orbit has observed the continuous birth of these evening-time bubbles for the first time, and scientists have started to chart their evolution.
5 March 2012
Space weather explosions detected on Venus
Scientists have found clear evidence on Venus for a type of space weather quite common at Earth, called a hot flow anomaly, an explosion that deflects solar wind.
16 August 2011
A quieter sun won’t make up for global warming
The Sun seems to be taking a bit of a rest. In recent years, scientists have detected fewer sunspots on the star’s surface, and many expect that number to drop further in coming decades — possibly echoing the Maunder Minimum, a period of low solar activity that happened centuries ago. But a decrease in the number of sunspots would not have much of a cooling effect on Earth over the next century, according to new research accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters.
GeoSpace is a blog on Earth and space science, managed by AGU’s Public Information staff. The blog features posts by AGU writers and guest contributors on all sorts of relevant science topics, but with a focus on new research and geo and space sciences-related stories that are currently in the news.