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Comets skimming past the sun may seem like ill-fated cosmic snowballs, and a team of scientists is trying to figure out what makes some fizzle and others explode as they make their solar death dives

may yield clues

origins of the solar system

Even small changes in solar activity can impact Earth's climate in significant and surprisingly complex ways, researchers say.

The sun is a constant star when compared with many others in the galaxy

ome stars pulsate dramatically, varying wildly in size and brightness and even exploding

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has experienced a new "tsunami wave" from the sun as it sails through interstellar space

Such waves are what led scientists to the conclusion, in the fall of 2013, that Voyager had indeed left our sun's bubble, entering a new frontier

"Normally, interstellar space is like a quiet lake,

Transits of Venus across the disk of the Sun are among the rarest of planetary alignments

only six such events have occurred since the invention of the telescope (1631, 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874 and 1882

event begins with contact I which is the instant when the planet's disk is externally tangent with the Sun. The entire disk of the Venus is first seen at contact II when the planet is internally tangent with the Sun. During the next several hours, Venus gradually traverses the solar disk at a relative angular rate of approximately 4 arc-min/hr. At contact III, the planet reaches the opposite limb and is once again internally tangent with the Sun. The transit ends at contact IV when the planet's limb is externally tangent to the Sun

Tuesday

One of the flares is the most powerful solar eruption of the year, so far.

Both of the huge flares ranked as X-class storms, the strongest type of solar flares the sun can have

large X5.4 solar flare that erupted on the Sun on March 7, 2012 at 00:28 UT, (7:28 PM EST on March 6).

high-definition views from the Solar Dynamics Observatory also show the subsequent solar tsunami that rippled across the Sun, appearing as though the Sun ‘shook’ from the force of the flare.

NASA Goddard’s Space Weather Lab and NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center say surely there will be aurorae from this blast

astronomers analyzed all four years of Kepler data in search of Earth-size planets in the habitable zones of sun-like stars

Based on this analysis, they estimate that 22 percent of stars like the sun have potentially habitable Earth-size planets, though not all may be rocky or have liquid water

NASA's Kepler spacecraft

An international team of astronomers has discovered that Tau Ceti, one of the closest and most Sun-like stars, may host five planets, including one in the star's habitable zone

twelve light years from Earth and visible to the naked eye in the evening sky, Tau Ceti is the closest single star that has the same spectral classification as our Sun

five planets are estimated to have masses between two and six times the mass of the Earth,

Scientists have discovered a new planet orbiting a Sun-like star, and the exoplanet is the smallest yet found in data from the Kepler mission

Kepler-37b, is smaller than Mercury, but slightly larger than Earth’s Moon

discovery came from a collaboration between Kepler scientists and a consortium of international researchers who employ asteroseismology

Morocco in 2011, and report that it is a new type of Mars rock with an unusually high water content.[8][9][10] American researchers state that a gene associated with active personality traits is also linked to

Astronomers affiliated with the Kepler space observatory announce the discovery of KOI-172.02, an Earth-like exoplanet candidate which orbits a star similar to the Sun in the habitable zone

13 January – Massachusetts doctors invent a pill-sized medical scanner that can be safely swallowed by patients, allowing the esophagus to be more easily scanned for disease

During archaeological excavations in the Kings' Valley in Upper Egypt a team of researchers

found one of the world's oldest ancient Egyptian sun dials

During this year's excavations the researchers found a flattened piece of limestone (so-called Ostracon) on which a semicircle in black color had been drawn

The positions of the planets next month will mean diminished communications between Earth and NASA's spacecraft at Mars

Mars will be passing almost directly behind the sun, from Earth's perspective. The sun can easily disrupt radio transmissions between the two planets during that near-alignment

To prevent an impaired command from reaching an orbiter or rover, mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., are preparing to suspend sending any commands to spacecraft at Mars for weeks in April

Gamma-Ray Burst

Gamma-ray bursts are extremely powerful, estimated to have 10 quadrillion times more energy than our sun

They are created by the collision of two collapsed stars

NASA says the most distant human made object — the Voyager 1 spacecraft — is in interstellar space

It actually made the transition about a year ago

there is a bit of an argument on the semantics of whether Voyager 1 is still inside or outside of our Solar System