ST
Solar-Terrestrial Sciences

EGU Guest blogger

This guest post was contributed by a scientist, student or a professional in the Earth, planetary or space sciences. The EGU blogs welcome guest contributions, so if you've got a great idea for a post or fancy trying your hand at science communication, please contact the blog editor or the EGU Communications Officer to pitch your idea.

Cosmic rays – messengers from space

March 19, 2018
Cosmic rays – messengers from space
Artistic representation of cosmic rays entering the Earth's atmosphere (Credit: Asimmetrie/INFN).

Cosmic rays (CRs), are not actually rays, but highly energetic charged particles of extraterrestrial origin. The life cycle of a cosmic ray particle starts with its birth at some point in the Universe, its travel at nearly the speed of light and finally with its death ( e.g. at a detector). These highly energetic particles strike our planet from all directions and thus provide a constant backgroun ...[Read More]

Social media response to geomagnetic activity

February 15, 2018
Social media response to geomagnetic activity
Daily averaged geomagnetic activity level and daily count of posts related to Aurora from Twitter during March 2017

Social media platforms offer every person with internet access the possibility to share content of various kind. The recent increase in social media use globally give birth to new tools and insights, from a different perspective. The size of, and the global nature of the user driven social media, makes one expect it to include information also about geomagnetic activity related to posts of visual ...[Read More]

How do we study the magnetosphere?

January 15, 2018
How do we study the magnetosphere?
The Sun-Earh system. Credit: NASA

Our closest star, the Sun, is constantly emitting hot gas in all directions as its upper atmosphere, the corona, expands. This is known as the Solar Wind, also carrying with it an embedded magnetic field, the Interplanetary Magnetic Field (IMF).  The IMF originates  at the Sun and forms an enormous spiral throughout the solar system as the solar wind escapes radially, while the magnetic field-line ...[Read More]

EGU for Early Career Scientists

November 15, 2017
EGU for Early Career Scientists
Austria International Center, Vienna. Image credit: EGU/Stephanie McClellan

Are you a student, or have obtained a MSc or PhD degree within the past 7 years? If yes, you are an Early Career Scientist! In the EGU we take great care of the young scientists, and offer a wide range of opportunities, mostly associated with the General Assembly. My name is Jone Peter Reistad and I am the Early Career Scientist (ECS) representative in the Solar-Terrestrial division. My role is to ...[Read More]

Miho Janvier – The Quest for Solar Storms

September 15, 2017
Miho Janvier – The Quest for Solar Storms
A snapshot of the Sun as this is revealed by SDO (Credit: SDO)

In this month’s (first ever for our blog) Life of a Scientist interview, we are very happy to talk to Dr Miho Janvier, a Researcher at the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale in Orsay (France), whose work has shed some light on the understanding of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections  (or solar storms) from their birth in the Sun’s corona to their evolution in interplanetary space ...[Read More]

The 2017 solar eclipse and scientific discoveries

August 14, 2017
The 2017 solar eclipse and scientific discoveries
Composite image showing a detailed view of the solar corona during the 2009 eclipse. Credit: Miloslav Druckmüller

The next solar eclipse is upon us. On August 21 the moon will pass between the Sun and an observer’s point of view in America and block out daylight, creating an eerie gloom in the sky. The transit of the moon between the Earth and Sun occurs about every 18 months, but for your particular city it can take several hundreds of years before a new eclipse occurs. The figure below shows the paths of al ...[Read More]

Capturing a Whole Total Eclipse of the Sun: Megamovie

July 25, 2017
Capturing a Whole Total Eclipse of the Sun: Megamovie
The Eclipse Megamovie Project (from https://eclipsemega.movie/)

by Hugh S Hudson (U. of Glasgow and UC Berkeley) Normally solar eclipses give an observer only a fleeting moment (minutes at most) to enjoy the solar corona. We aim to amplify that considerably in the August 21 eclipse across North America. The plan is simple: Megamovie will capture everybody’s images, especially those from a group of 1,000 photographc volunteers, and compile them into an op ...[Read More]

Welcome

June 27, 2017

Welcome to the ST division blog! The Solar-Terrestrial (ST) Division of European Geosciences Union (EGU) is starting its own blog! The blog is an initiative by a group of enthusiasts who met during the EGU’s General Assembly in April 2017. We are thrilled to set up this blog that will keep our readers informed about a range of topics relevant to the science of the division. The influence of the Su ...[Read More]