Around 30 Australians are diagnosed with melanoma every day and more than 1,200 die from the disease each year. While small amounts of ultraviolet (UV) radiation are required for the production of vitamin…
The earlier you find a cancerous mole, the easier the treatment and the better the outcomes. But it’s not easy distinguishing between harmless, benign moles and those that warrant further attention. In…
It’s well known that severe space weather events – which are quite rare – can have a negative impact on our use of Global Positioning System (GPS) enabled devices. But our research, published in Geophysical…
The largest sunspot seen in 24 years is rotating back to face the Earth, and it looks to have grown even bigger. Last month, the solar active region known as AR12192 (also known as AR2192 to some of its…
Each month, at the time of new moon, the sun and moon are together in the daytime sky. Most of the time the moon passes by unnoticed. But at least twice a year, somewhere on Earth will see the moon pass…
It’s the time of the equinox or more specifically the spring equinox for us in the southern hemisphere. The equinox is a midpoint. It’s around now that day and night become equal in length (but more about…
During the early hours of this morning (3:42am AEST) our sun released a strong solar flare. It follows right on the heels of a more moderate flare that was released from the same region of the sun on Tuesday…
What makes our sun shine has been a mystery for most of human history. Given our sun is a star and stars are suns, explaining the source of the sun’s energy would help us understand why stars shine. An…
Space weather impacts many modern-day technologies. But one of the most concerning – and least reported – space weather effects is the increased radiation exposure to passengers on commercial long-distance…
Over the past few months night sky watchers in the southern parts of Australia have been presented with lots of beautiful displays of the Aurora Australis or Southern Lights. So what causes the impressive…
The sun is our nearest star and the source of all our light and heat on Earth but recent reports have highlighted an ongoing steep decline in solar activity. This story is a reminder that our sun is a…
If your blood test results suggest you’re low on vitamin D, you’re not alone – nearly one-third of the Australian population isn’t getting enough of the sunshine vitamin. But this doesn’t necessarily mean…
If there is one thing we know about comets, it is that their behaviour is really hard to predict and that they will always surprise us – and sometimes disappoint. Unfortunately it looks like comet ISON…
Sunanda Creagh, The Conversation and Merran Reed, The Conversation
The amount of solar radiation passing through Earth’s atmosphere and reaching the ground globally peaked in the 1930s, substantially decreased from the 1940s to the 1970s, and changed little after that…
You may have read the sun’s magnetic field is heading for a change in field polarity - meaning it will flip upside down - and could have ripple effects throughout the entire solar system. So what does…
It was written in the stars all along, but we’ve just found out: a whopping 70% of stars in a widely-studied cluster die before reaching old age which, for stars, is the most productive stage of their…
Last week, blogger Alec Rawls leaked a working draft of the 5th Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). One section of the IPCC report examines the role of the sun on…
A study published in the journal Nature Geoscience last week suggests water on the moon may have come, at least in part, from the sun. Until a few years ago the orthodox view was that the moon was bone-dry…
The biggest space storm in five years is hurtling towards Earth at more than 2000 km per second. Two bursts of solar wind and plasma - known as coronal mass ejections (CME) - are expected to hit Earth…