Using electromagnetism, researchers are bending and shaping soft liquid wires even against gravity. The team used galinstan — an alloy of gallium, indium, and tin that remains liquid at room Keep reading
Tag: magnetohydrodynamics
Brilliant Auroras
Glowing auroras billow across Canada in this satellite image from a recent geomagnetic storm. As our sun enters a more active part of its solar cycle, we can expect more Keep reading
Coronal Heating
Compared to its interior, the surface of our sun is a cool 6,000 degrees Celsius. But beyond the surface, the sun’s corona heats up dramatically through interactions between plasma and Keep reading
“One Month of Sun”
Get lost in the beauty of our star with Seán Doran‘s film “One Month of Sun”. Constructed from more than 78,000 NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory images, the video shows solar Keep reading
Ferrofluid in a Cell
Ferrofluids are a colloid consisting of magnetically sensitive nanoparticles suspended in a carrier liquid, like oil. They’re often associated with a distinctive spiky appearance when exposed to a magnet, but this isn’t their only magnetic Keep reading
Grayscale Aurora
This swirling grayscale image shows a spring aurora over the Hudson Bay, as seen by the Suomi NPP satellite. As energetic particles from the sun zip past Earth, they interact with our magnetosphere, which Keep reading
Plasma Shock Waves
Solar flares and coronal mass ejections send out shock waves that reverberate through our solar system. But shock waves through plasma – the ionized, high-energy particles making up the solar wind – do Keep reading
Liquid Magnets
Ferrofluids – those distinctively spiky liquids – are made up of magnetically sensitive nanoparticles in a carrier liquid, and although they respond to applied magnetic fields, they retain no magnetism outside Keep reading
Magnetic Storms
Periodically, our sun releases plasma in a coronal mass ejection. Afterwards, the local magnetic field lines shift and reorganize. We can see that process in action here because charged particles spin along Keep reading
Astrophysical Turbulence
Subsonic turbulence – like the random and chaotic motions of air and water in our everyday lives – is something we have only a limited understanding of. Our knowledge of Keep reading