The strange cloud-like protursion above Mars' limb (around the 1 o'clock point). Credit: Wayne Jaeschke. Last week, amateur astronomer Wayne Jaeschke noticed something peculiar in his observations of Mars — there appeared to be a cloud-like structure hanging above the limb of the planet....

The Aurora from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo. I actually posted this jaw-dropping video on Discovery News last month, but today it got picked up on Digg, so I was reminded why I had to feature it. The video is actually composed of 22,000 high-definition photographs, stitched together is a finely crafted...

Exoplanets may reveal their location through radio emissions (NASA) In 2009, I wrote about a fascinating idea: in the hunt for “Earth-like” exoplanets, perhaps we could detect the radio emissions from a distant world possessing a magnetosphere. This basically builds on the premise that planets...

Solar spicules as imaged by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (NASA) There’s one recurring question I’ve been asking for nearly a decade: Why is the Sun’s corona (its atmosphere) so hot? When asking this out loud I inevitably get the sarcastic “um, because the Sun is…...

Solar Dynamics Observatory view of the solar disk shortly after eruption (NASA). This morning, at 08:55 UT, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) detected a C3-class flare erupt inside a sunspot cluster. 100,000 kilometers away, deep within the solar atmosphere (the corona), an extended magnetic...

Stunning art, UFOs not included (© Lucy Pringle) Alternative title: “Jumping to Conclusions and Bullshit” Crop circles are amazing. They are, quite literally, works of art. And like all other known forms of art, they are constructed by people with time on their hands. No UFOs have been...

Playing on our love for WALL-E, our amazement for the Pixar Lamp and some great animation, Chris Smith, an employee at NASA Goddard Flight Center, has given the upcoming Solar Dynamics Observatory a personality. Apart from obviously having too much time on his hands, Smith is a very talented guy (as...

Sigmoids in the solar corona have been studied for many years, but little explanation of their formation or why they are often the seed of powerful solar flares have been forthcoming. Using high-resolution X-ray images from the Japanese-led solar mission Hinode (originally Solar-B), solar physicists...

It’s been a busy day with a range of topics posted on the Universe Today, but all have a common thread: the universe is a deadly place for man and galaxy. For starters, research into the radiation mankind will face when settling on Mars and the Moon could prove to be one of our main challenges...

The Earth’s Van Allen belts are the location for some of the most fearsome particles in space. Highly energetic particles from the Sun get trapped in the layers of the magnetosphere, setting them up for an injection of waves causing acceleration and heating. This naturally causes concern for astronauts...