Fires glow above and below in this award-winning image from photographer Josh Beames. In the foreground, lava from an Icelandic eruption spurts into the air and seeps across the landscape Keep reading
Tag: magnetohydrodynamics
Beneath a River of Red
A glowing arch of red, pink, and white anchors this stunning composite astrophotograph. This is a STEVE (Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement) caused by a river of fast-moving ions high Keep reading
A Magnetic Tsunami Warning
Tsunamis are devastating natural disasters that can strike with little to no warning for coastlines. Often the first sign of major tsunami is a drop in the sea level as Keep reading
Reinterpreting Uranus’s Magnetosphere
NASA launched the Voyager 2 probe nearly 50 years ago, and, to date, it’s the only spacecraft to visit icy Uranus. This ice giant is one of our oddest planets Keep reading
How Magnetic Fields Shape Core Flows
The Earth’s inner core is a hot, solid iron-rich alloy surrounded by a cooler, liquid outer core. The convection and rotation in this outer core creates our magnetic fields, but Keep reading
Hello, STEVE
A purple glow arcs across the night sky. Just another aurora, or is it? First described in 2018, this is a STEVE — Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement. (Yes, the Keep reading
Eerie Aurora
This surreal image comes from an aurora on Halloween 2013. Photographer Ole C. Salomonsen captured it in Norway during one of the best auroral displays that year. The shimmering green Keep reading
A Plasma Arc Lights
Plasma lighters — as their name indicates — use plasma in place of burning butane. Plasma — our universe’s most common state of matter — is a gas that’s been Keep reading
Martian Auroras
Auroras happen when energetic particles — usually from the solar wind — interact with the atmosphere. Here on Earth, they’re most often found near the poles, where our strong global Keep reading
A Triangular Prominence
Our Sun is a maelstrom of light and heat, a constant battlefield for plasma and magnetic fields. This recent prominence, captured by Andrea Vanoni and others, bore a striking triangular Keep reading