Tag: Heliophysics Division
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Starstruck: NASA Research Shows How Sun’s Ancient History Shaped Earth
At the center of our solar system, the Sun influences every planet that orbits it. In two recent NASA-funded studies, scientists uncovered how ancient events in the Sun’s history may have helped create Earth’s unique climate and driven previously unexplained…
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NASA’s AWE Completes Mission to Study Earth’s Effect on Space Weather
On May 21, ground controllers powered down NASA’s AWE (Atmospheric Waves Experiment) instrument, bringing the data collection phase of the mission to a successful and scheduled end, surpassing its planned two-year mission. Installed on the exterior of the International Space…
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NASA’s STORIE Mission to Tell Tale of Earth’s Ring Current
Earth’s magnetic field is like a powerful trap. It lures electrically charged particles in space, near our planet, and snares them in an invisible, doughnut-shaped pen around Earth known as the ring current. This captive swarm of charged particles plays…
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To Protect Artemis II Astronauts, NASA Experts Keep Eyes on Sun
As four astronauts travel around the Moon on NASA’s Artemis II mission, they will venture beyond Earth’s protective magnetic field. The crew’s spacecraft, Orion, will carry and protect them as they journey into deep space and serves as the main…
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NASA’s ESCAPADE Ready to Study Space Weather from Earth to Mars
Mars is not what it used to be. Once warm, watery, and blanketed by a thick atmosphere, today the Red Planet is cold, dry, and draped by a thin atmospheric veil. The main culprit is a relentless stream of particles…
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NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Spies Solar Wind ‘U-Turn’
Images captured by NASA’s Parker Solar Probe as the spacecraft made its record-breaking closest approach to the Sun in December 2024 have now revealed new details about how solar magnetic fields responsible for space weather escape from the Sun —…
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New NASA Mission to Reveal Earth’s Invisible ‘Halo’
This story is also available in Spanish. A new NASA mission will capture images of Earth’s invisible “halo,” the faint light given off by our planet’s outermost atmospheric layer, the exosphere, as it morphs and changes in response to the…
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NASA’s IMAP Mission to Study Boundaries of Our Home in Space
Summary Space is a dangerous place — one that NASA continues to explore for the benefit of all. It’s filled with radiation and high-energy particles that can damage DNA and circuit boards alike. Yet life endures in our solar system…
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NASA Launching Rockets Into Radio-Disrupting Clouds
UPDATE June 30, 2025: The second rocket of the SEED mission launched on Saturday, June 28, at 8:11 p.m. Marshall Islands Time (MHT). Principal investigator Aroh Barjatya reports that the rocket launched into active science conditions in the ionosphere and…
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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…