Tag Archives: sun

Solar wind and real wind

Posted on 21st July by Mr Reid

“Solar wind” is a col­lo­quial term for the stream of charged particles ejected from the surface of the Sun by heat and strong magnetic fields. It is the inter­ac­tion between the solar wind and Earth’s magnetic field that is respons­ible … Continue reading →

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The Northern Lights over the UK

Posted on 17th February by Mr Reid

A sunspot is an area of intense magnetic activity on the surface of the Sun (the pho­to­sphere) that causes it to decrease in tem­per­ature and darken. One par­tic­ular sunspot (ima­gin­at­ively named “Active Region 1158″, shown above) has been growing in size … Continue reading →

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What’s up with the Sun?

Posted on 5th February by Mr Reid

The Sun (the big floaty fireball, not the awful “news­paper”) has been in the news lately as it’s been pre­dicted that the Sun may inter­fere with the 2012 Olympics. It’s been sug­gested that  solar flares, ejec­tions of material from the … Continue reading →

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A cautionary tale

Posted on 4th May by Mr Reid

If you’ve ever been involved with weather mon­it­oring you’ll know that a spher­ical lens can focus sunlight to a point. The Campbell-Stokes sunlight recorder counts the hours of sunlight per day by burning a trail across a cal­ib­rated sheet of paper. … Continue reading →

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Unsolved: Why is the Sun so hot?

Posted on 27th October by Mr Reid

The corona of the Sun is a layer of plasma that extends millions of kilo­metres into space above the Sun’s surface. The problem is that the tem­per­ature of the corona is between one and three million kelvin, whilst the tem­per­ature of … Continue reading →

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