sun

The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields.[12][13] It has a diameter of about 1,392,684 km,[5] about 109 times that of Earth, and its mass (about 2×1030 kilograms, 330,000 times that of Earth) accounts for about 99.86% of the total mass of the Solar System.[14] Chemically, about three quarters of the Sun's mass consists of hydrogen, while the rest is mostly helium. The remainder (1.69%, which nonetheless equals 5,628 times the mass of Earth) consists of heavier elements, including oxygen, carbon, neon and iron, among others.[15]

For more information about sun check the Wikipedia article here

ZME Science posts about sun

Benefits of sun exposure may outweigh the downsides

Thu, May 23, 2013

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Lately, the sun has received a lot of thrash talk for the harm it causes with exposure, increasing the risk of skin cancer. But a new study conducted by researchers from the University of Edinburgh has shown that the benefits of exposure to UV rays may be greater than the risk of getting skin cancer, [...]

Some photos of the amazing sun halo hovering over NYC

Wed, May 15, 2013

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Yesterday, residents in many parts of the US were treated to a wonderful sight as the sun became wrapped in a rainbow halo. Like a brilliant all seeing eye, the sun cast its rays from a most privileged position prompting some unsuspecting people to believe an alien invasion is nigh. ZME Science folks, however, know [...]

The sun has the closest geometry to the perfect sphere found in nature

Fri, Aug 17, 2012

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The sun has been extensively studied by astronomers for the last 50 years. While previous research suggested that the the sun is slightly  sun bulged a bit around the middle , making it very slightly flying-saucer shaped,  new measurements however taken by a satellite  suggest that its shape is the closest to that of a perfect [...]

Today’s Venus transit in [PHOTOS]

Wed, Jun 6, 2012

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Hope some of you caught the Venus transit today, an event in which the planet travels across the face of the sun, appearing as a small, moving dot on its surface from observers on Earth. Don’t worry, if you missed it though – the next one is only in 100 years or so.   I woke [...]

Solar flare heading our way – to hit the Earth on Saturday

Fri, Jan 20, 2012

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The sun recently shout out an M3.2-class solar flare in our direction, which scientists expect to hit the Earth this Saturday. The coronal mass ejection however is too weak to cause any havoc like doomsday fanatics might hope, just an incredible “fireworks” display as the charged particles hit the Earth’s magnetic field resulting in spectacular aurora [...]

New discovery reveals Stonehenge secret

Mon, Nov 28, 2011

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In a remarkable find, archeologists have uncovered two ancient pits, perfectly aligned with the sun’s natural summer cycle. These suggest that the Stonehenge site was a place for sun worship at least 500 years before the first stone was erected. Archaeologists  from the universities of Birmingham, Bradford  and Vienna were involved in an on-going survey work [...]

Enormous water reservoir found in space is bigger than 140 trillion earth oceans

Mon, Jul 25, 2011

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Astronomers have discovered the largest body of water so far known, a reservoir of water floating in space around a ancient distant quasar,  holding 140 trillion times the mass of water in the Earth’s oceans. Remarkably enough, the find was dated as being 12 billion light years away, only  1.6 billion light years farther from [...]

The most spectacular comet death ever

Fri, May 13, 2011

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  Every once in a while, the Sun gets a little hungry; in those times, it grabs on a little comet snack, and every once in a while, these ‘snacks’ are caught on tape. However, never has a comet been captured so spectacularly in its final moments as with the video released by NASA Tuesday. [...]

Extrasolar hot Jupiter sheds some light on our own solar system

Fri, May 13, 2011

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Since 1995, over 500 planets that don’t orbit our Sun have been discovered, with the numbers increasing more and more in the past years. But only recently did astrophysicists observe that in some of these cases, the star seems to be spinning in one direction, and the planet orbits it in the totally opposite direction [...]

Google hires Java founder amidst Oracle lawsuit

Mon, Mar 28, 2011

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Within computer geek circles it is common to find people with stuff like … I don’t know, a Java altar with maybe a large painting of its developer-father-god-cyber-entity James Gosling. Really, there are literary millions of java enthusiasts our there, your truly included, and billions more using Java under one form or another. Today, Java’s [...]

Coldest star so far found – not hotter than a cup of coffee

Wed, Mar 23, 2011

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Astronomers usually classify stellar objects by a spectra going from hotter to cooler, using the letters O, B, A, F, G, K, and M. As observational technology progressed and a myriad of new astronomical findings were made, in the last 15 years alone two new classes  L and T emerged designed to describe ultracool brown [...]

How many planets are in the Milky Way? Over 50 billion

Mon, Feb 21, 2011

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Yes, you’ve read that right. There are over 50 billion planets in our galaxy alone, according to the Kepler telescope, scientists now estimate that not only there are over 500 bilion planets in the galaxy, but that there are over 500 million life-cable planets out there as well. These numbers obviously come from Nasa’s own [...]

A solar tsunami set to generate celestial show tonight

Tue, Aug 3, 2010

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A huge plasma eruption that took place on the Sun has caused a “solar tsunami” of ionized atoms that are on a course for our planet on Tuesday night. Nothing to be too alarmed here, except for the disruption of some satellites. It will however generate quite a show, a rare and unpredictable one too. [...]

NASA launches observatory to study sun

Thu, Feb 11, 2010

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It’s NASA’s second launch in just 4 days (after Endeavour), and this time it’s about the most advanced solar observatory ever built. It was first placed on a shuttle station complex and it was orbiting the Atlantic when it was rocketed into space in an unmaned rocket. The Solar Dynamics Observatory (as it was named) [...]

The day our Sun brought darkness

Tue, Mar 17, 2009

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About 20 years ago, on March 13, 1989, the whole province of Quebec, Canada, suffered a blackout that by now has reached legendary proportions among astronomers and electrical engineers. Still, what made it reach this status wasn’t its proportions, but the fact that it was caused by the sun, or a solar storm to be [...]

Green visitor to pass through the solar system

Sun, Feb 22, 2009

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Unfortunately for some, the green visitor is not an alien coming to greet us but something else, even though it also comes from far, far away. On the 24th of February the comet Lulin will pass within 61 million kilometers of Earth, thus being able to be seen with the naked eye from some locations. [...]

NASA shows that Sun is not a sphere

Mon, Oct 6, 2008

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Using the RHESSI spacecraft, scientists managed to calculate the Sun’s roundness with a level of precision that surpasses anything of this type that has been attempted before. They found that the star which the Eart rotates around is not quite a sphere, but it has a thin “cantaloupe skin”. This skin causes the equatorial radius [...]

Century old milestone broken: spotless month for the Sun

Wed, Sep 10, 2008

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Our old Sun has broken a milestone that has not happened for almost a hundred years, as an entire month has passed without a single sun spot being noted. This is relevant because many climatologists believe there is a tight connection between solar magnetic activity which is responsable for the sun spots and climate on [...]

Scientists heat matter to hotter than surface of the Sun

Fri, May 30, 2008

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  Think about the hottest thing that comes to your mind; probably, 90% of people would answer the Sun. But what if you found out that some scientists in Oxfordshire have heated matter to 10 million Celsius, hotter than the surface of the Sun, marking a major landmark in research, you’d probably change your mind. [...]

Ulysses spacecraft flies over Sun’s north pole

Thu, Jan 24, 2008

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The Ulysses spacecraft today is making a very interesting and important rare flyby over the sun’s north pole. This spacecraft is different from anyother, being able to sample winds at the sun’s poles, which are difficult to study from Earth. However, this is not the first time it has been over the Sun’s poles; this [...]

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