Science News

Solar storms and Northern Lights are in the offing as the sun approaches Solar Max, expected in mid-to-late 2013. Recently, Earth's defenses were tested by a volley of strong eruptions. Find out what happened in this week's explosive ScienceCast.

Articles about ASTRONOMY: http://www.scoop.it/t/science-news?tag=astronomy

A flurry of solar activity in early March dumped enough heat in Earth's upper atmosphere to power every residence in New York City for two years. The heat has since dissipated, but there's more to come as the solar cycle intensifies.

This sonification of the recent solar storm activity turns data from two spacecraft into sound. It uses measurements from the NASA SOHO spacecraft and the University of Michigan's Fast Imaging Plasma Spectrometer (FIPS) on NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft at Mercury. The creator is Robert Alexander, a design science doctoral student at the University of Michigan and NASA fellow.