May 2018
PLATO the habitable zone explorer
... possible from space. Kepler stared for four years at the same patch of sky, while K2, an ingenious extension of the Kepler mission using the radiation pressure from the Sun to stabilise the satellite, is only able to carry out short-duration stares...
January 2019
Visiting an asteroid to find out how life began
... first, operations will pause as the Sun will get in the way. Solar conjunction occurs when the Sun moves between Ryugu and the Earth, interfering with communication with the spacecraft. From the end of November to the end of December, communication...
May 2021
Forecasting space-weather effects on Earth
... stream of particles and magnetic fields released by the Sun is called the solar wind. The Sun’s intense magnetic field can, in places, prevent the heat of the interior from reaching the surface, creating relatively cooler zones called sunspots...
January 2022
Revealing the magnetic universe
..., but as it lost mass via nuclear fusion and the outward flowing solar wind, the rotation slowed down and the magnetic activity decreased. Over the last 4.6 billion years, the Sun has completed nearly twenty revolutions around our galactic...
June 2022
Sunshades in space could help alleviate Earth’s climate crisis
... Lagrange Point 1 (SEL-1). This is an unstable equilibrium point between the Earth and the Sun, about 1.5 million km sunward of Earth, where the gravitational effects of the Earth and Sun cancel each other out. Thin film structures are also affected...
August 2018
Flying to the stars
... distances involved. Imagine for a moment that the distance between our Sun and the Earth is one metre. The Sun would be the size of a grain of salt on this scale. Still, the closest star to our Sun, Proxima Centauri, would be more than 265 km away...
