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SPACE: Scientists Search for Our Mother Sun

mother sun

Image Credit: NAOJ Billions of years ago, a huge star blasted open and spewed its guts into space. At that energetic moment, the so-called core-collapse supernova formed a debris cloud of brand-new atoms, forged in the heat of its blast. Time passed. The cloud contracted, attracted to itself by its own gravity. A star formed — our sun — surrounded by chunks of rock and gas that formed our planets and other orbiting bodies. Much later, we came along. That’s the basic story of our solar system’s birth. And, mostly from watching other supernovas and other star births out in … Read more

PHOTO: Solar Halo or Portal Into Another Dimension?

Sun Halo

Skiers in Sweden last month were treated to an otherworldly sun halo as they hit the slopes. APOD writes: “What’s happened to the Sun? Sometimes it looks like the Sun is being viewed through a giant lens. In the featured video, however, there are actually millions of tiny lenses: ice crystals. Water may freeze in the atmosphere into small, flat, six-sided, ice crystals. As these crystals flutter to the ground, much time is spent with their faces flat and parallel to the ground. An observer may find themselves in the same plane as many of the falling ice crystals near … Read more