An astronomer explains how. why and when eclipses happen, what scientists can learn from them, and what they would look like if you were standing on the Moon.
The Sun is currently middle-aged, having celebrated its 4,568,000,000th birthday at some point in the last million years.
Flickr/ChopWood CarryWater
Full moons are good reason to look up – and the one on Nov. 14 is no exception. But here’s why you likely won’t see something shockingly different from other full moons you’ve observed over the years.
Our growing dependency on satellites for all forms of communication has made the problem of space weather even more acute.
An artist’s illustration of Kappa Ceti whose stellar winds are 50 times stronger than our sun’s. Any Earth-like planet would need a magnetic field to protect its atmosphere if it was to stand a chance of hosting life.
M. Weiss/CfA
In the search for life on other planets in the universe we need to find the right kind of star, and it needs to have the right kind of space weather.
Artist’s impression: Looking back 12.9-billion km towards the sun and the inner solar system from Sedna, one of the recently discovered minor planets in the Kuiper belt.
NASA, ESA and Adolf Schaller
The search for new objects, including new planets, in our solar system has turned up some interesting finds. There have been a few failures over the years too.
The UV Index was created last century largely for North American and European conditions, which rarely reach the ‘extreme’ range.
Andy Cross/Flickr
Alongside the day’s high and low, weather reports generally contain a UV alert for a particular time. But what does it actually mean – and what should you do about it?
Hurricane Arthur photographed by ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst.
ESA/NASA
The recent claim that we might enter a mini ice age in 15 years is not only bad science, but it represents a failure of communication by both scientists and journalists.
Intensive sun exposure for marathon runners in the middle of the day could lead to sunburn, skin cancer and cataracts.
Rogan Ward/Reuters
Keytruda® is the latest drug to be registered in Australia for the treatment of widespread melanoma. But we must wait to see if it meets the cost-effectiveness targets for PBS subsidisation.
Research suggests that sunlight may have benefits that we have not yet discovered.
Joseph D'Mello/Flickr