The beauty in this image comes in layers. On the bottom layer is the picturesque village of Manlleu in Barcelona, Spain. The six-minute exposure makes car lights into streaks. The next layer is a mountain -- Serra de Bellmunt -- of Europe's famous Pyrenees. Next up is a tremendous lightning... Continue Reading →
With data from its closest pass of the Sun yet, the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft has found compelling clues as to the origin of magnetic switchbacks, and points towards how their physical formation mechanism might help accelerate the solar wind.... Continue Reading →
Yes, but how many dark clouds have a multicolored lining? Pictured, behind this darker cloud, is a pileus iridescent cloud, a group of water droplets that have a uniformly similar size and so together diffract different colors of sunlight by different amounts. The featured image was taken... Continue Reading →
We all wish that we could sometimes see into the future. Now, thanks to the very latest data from ESA’s star mapping Gaia mission, astronomers can do just that for the Sun. By accurately identifying stars of similar mass and... Continue Reading →
The researchers observed unexpected, rapid "electron precipitation" from low-Earth orbit using the ELFIN mission, a pair of tiny satellites built and operated on the UCLA campus by undergraduate and graduate students guided by a small team of staff mentors. By... Continue Reading →
Latest images reveal that the A-68A iceberg has shattered into multiple pieces, with two large fragments of ice breaking off from the main berg and floating away in the open ocean. Scientists using satellite data have not only been monitoring... Continue Reading →
Nearly 40 years of satellite data from Greenland shows that glaciers on the island have shrunk so much that even if global warming were to stop today, the ice sheet would continue shrinking. The finding, published in the journal Nature Communications... Continue Reading →
What's happening behind those clouds? Although the scene may appear somehow supernatural, nothing more unusual is occurring than a Sun setting on the other side of the sky. Pictured here are anticrepuscular rays. To understand them, start by picturing common crepuscular rays that are seen any... Continue Reading →
There is always something interesting happening in the sky. The Moon cycles through its phases and occasionally passes near a bright planet. Sometimes the Moon eclipses the Sun. And sometimes the Moon itself is eclipsed as it passes through Earth's... Continue Reading →
Scents of Science 