NASA to Launch SNIFS, Sun’s Next Trailblazing Spectator

July will see the launch of the groundbreaking Solar EruptioN Integral Field Spectrograph mission, or SNIFS. Delivered to space via a Black Brant IX sounding rocket, SNIFS will explore the energy and dynamics of the chromosphere, one of the most complex regions of the Sun’s atmosphere. The SNIFS mission’s launch window at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico opens on Friday, July 18. 

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Snaps Closest-Ever Images to Sun

KEY POINTS On its record-breaking pass by the Sun late last year, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe captured stunning new images from within the Sun’s atmosphere. These newly released images — taken closer to the Sun than we’ve ever been before — are helping scientists better understand the Sun’s influence across the solar system, including events […]

NASA Missions Help Explain, Predict Severity of Solar Storms

An unexpectedly strong solar storm rocked our planet on April 23, 2023, sparking auroras as far south as southern Texas in the U.S. and taking the world by surprise.  Two days earlier, the Sun blasted a coronal mass ejection (CME) — a cloud of energetic particles, magnetic fields, and solar material — toward Earth. Space scientists […]

NASA Launching Rockets Into Radio-Disrupting Clouds

NASA is launching rockets from a remote Pacific island to study mysterious, high-altitude cloud-like structures that can disrupt critical communication systems. The mission, called Sporadic-E ElectroDynamics, or SEED, opens its three-week launch window from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands on Friday, June 13. The atmospheric features SEED is studying are known as Sporadic-E layers, […]

NASA’s CODEX Captures Unique Views of Sun’s Outer Atmosphere

Key Points: Scientists analyzing data from NASA’s CODEX (Coronal Diagnostic Experiment) investigation have successfully evaluated the instrument’s first images, revealing the speed and temperature of material flowing out from the Sun. These images, shared at a press event Tuesday at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, illustrate the Sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona, […]

What NASA Is Learning from the Biggest Geomagnetic Storm in 20 Years

One year on, NASA scientists are still making huge discoveries about the largest geomagnetic storm to hit Earth in two decades, the Gannon storm. The findings are helping us better understand and prepare for the ways in which the Sun’s activity can affect us. One year ago today, representatives from NASA and about 30 other […]

What NASA Is Learning from the Biggest Geomagnetic Storm in 20 Years

One year on, NASA scientists are still making huge discoveries about the largest geomagnetic storm to hit Earth in two decades, the Gannon storm. The findings are helping us better understand and prepare for the ways in which the Sun’s activity can affect us. One year ago today, representatives from NASA and about 30 other […]

What NASA Is Learning from the Biggest Geomagnetic Storm in 20 Years

One year on, NASA scientists are still making huge discoveries about the largest geomagnetic storm to hit Earth in two decades, the Gannon storm. The findings are helping us better understand and prepare for the ways in which the Sun’s activity can affect us. One year ago today, representatives from NASA and about 30 other […]

NASA Earns Two Emmy Nominations for 2024 Total Solar Eclipse Coverage

NASA’s coverage of the April 8, 2024, total solar eclipse has earned two nominations for the 46th Annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards. The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announced the nominations on May 1, recognizing NASA’s outstanding work in sharing this rare celestial event with audiences around the world. The winners are set […]