Lightning on Earth needs just a few simple ingredients to generate a spark. Those ingredients exist throughout the solar system and beyond.
solar system
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Using Earth’s Atmosphere as a Solar Flare Monitor
Measurements of very-low frequency radio signal phase and amplitude can detect upper atmosphere changes caused by solar flares, enabling us to monitor flare occurrence and intensity.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Using a Machine to Help Us Learn About Jupiter’s Aurora
A first usage of principal component analysis on Hubble images of Jupiter’s auroral ovals reveals the most common patterns, and machine learning classification reveals their physical causes.
Posted inNews
Meet Hygiea, the Smallest Dwarf Planet in Our Solar System
New observations confirm that main asteroid belt object Hygiea is round. It now fulfills all the requirements to graduate from asteroid to dwarf planet.
Posted inNews
Voyager 2’s Interstellar Arrival Was Kind of Familiar. That’s Surprising
The spacecraft crossed the solar system’s edge at a different spot and in a different solar season than Voyager 1. Nevertheless, the border looked much the same in both spots.
Posted inNews
What Inflates the Solar Bubble? Voyagers Count What’s Missing
The first in situ measurement of the pressure at the edge of the solar system reveals that there’s still a lot we don’t know about what sets the size of the heliosphere.
Posted inNews
Our Seismic Solar System
Earth’s not the only thing that shakes and quakes and goes around the Sun. Not by a long shot.
Posted inAGU News
A New Approach to New Worlds
This month we look around our solar system—and much farther—as we celebrate AGU’s Centennial.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Sampling the Space Between the Stars
Data from the Cassini and Voyager spacecraft reveal new information about the Sun’s magnetic bubble.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Solar Properties Rival for Control of Mars’s Bow Shock
While most planetary bow shocks are controlled by the solar wind, at Mars the solar EUV flux is equally important.