Solar-Terrestrial Sciences

Eyes on the Sun

Kamalam October 31, 2017

Fig. 1: The Sun’s layers in different wavelengths. Credits NASA/GSFC/SDO

The Sun is a complex, dynamic ball of plasma which influences our lives. Studying the Sun is challenging because each of its layers have different composition, physics and wavelengths of emssion. Moving outwards from the photosphere (visible surface of the Sun), we have the chromosphere and the corona (hottest outermost layer). The solar plasma is in constant motion much like fiercely boiling wate ...[Read More]

Miho Janvier – The Quest for Solar Storms

Athanasios Papaioannou September 15, 2017

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

Koen Hendrickx August 14, 2017

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

Hugh S Hudson July 25, 2017

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

Kamalam Vanninathan and Athanasios Papaioannou 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]