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Hi, The speed of light in a vacuum (i.e., empty space), is a constant at a terrifically fast 186,282 miles per second (299,792 kilometers per second)...

1 month ago

Terry Kucerareplied to: RE: Sun

Hi, Compared to things we think about in our regular lives, the Sun is huge. It’s diameter is 1,390,000 km (about 864,000 miles) across. You could fi...

1 month ago

Terry Kucerareplied to: RE: Stars dying

Hi, Astronomers have developed ideas about how stars change over time by studying large numbers of stars and using physics to model how they develop....

1 month ago

Terry Kucerareplied to: RE: Question

Hi, You really should not look right at the Sun during the day – especially don’t stare at it. That can cause eye damage. At the time of totality ...

1 month ago

Terry Kucerareplied to: RE: colors of sun

Hi, Many of those images you are seeing are of the Sun in wavelengths of light (colors) humans can’t see – like ultraviolet and x-rays. We color code...

1 month ago

Terry Kucerareplied to: RE: space weather

Hi, Changes on the sun can affect the environment around Earth and other places in the solar system, affecting spacecraft, communications, power sys...

1 month ago

Terry Kucerareplied to: RE: Solar Mission

Hi Andrea, I'm not involved, but I certainly know people who are. They might be too busy to be doing Solar Week right now. I think it should be a ...

10/30/2017

Terry Kucerareplied to: RE: sunspots

Hi Kevin, The shortest explanation I can give is that in the sunspot umbra the magnetic field stops energy from getting to the sun's surface, but i...

10/27/2017

Terry Kucerareplied to: RE: other planets

Hi Tamara, Yes, I do. There have been a large number of planets around other stars (exoplanets) discovered at this point. This is very exciting - whe...

10/27/2017

Terry Kucerareplied to: RE: solar storm

Hi Thien, There are different kinds of solar storms. I am thinking you mean coronal mass ejections (CMEs). These are giant clouds that blast off the ...

10/27/2017

Terry Kucerareplied to: RE: life elsewhere

Hi Cathy, It seems to me very likely that there is life elsewhere - there are so many other stars and planets out there that it seems like it must ...

10/27/2017

Terry Kucerareplied to: RE: sun

Hi Sherre, The closest star system to the Sun is Alpha Centauri. It is about 4.3 light years (25 trillion miles) away. You can read more about it her...

10/27/2017

Terry Kucerareplied to: RE: Pluto

Hi Craig, New Horizons has basically changed our understanding of Pluto from being a blurry dot to being real world with all sorts of interesting fea...

10/26/2017

Terry Kucerareplied to: RE: sunspots

Hi Kimi, Sun spots change there position over the course of the solar cycle. Early in the cycle they appear at higher latitudes (although not actual...

10/26/2017

Terry Kucerareplied to: RE: CME

Hi Stephanie, Predicting CMEs and how quickly they move through the solar system is one of the big goals of research into space weather. We can'...

10/23/2017

Terry Kucerareplied to: RE: sunspots

Hi Rickie, That is a very interesting question - and gets to some very important questions that solar scientists are working on. If there were sun...

3/30/2017

Terry Kucerareplied to: RE: sun

Hi Henry, The sun's poles are hot, but solar poles are very interesting places - not just like everywhere else on the sun. As you probably know, ...

3/29/2017

Terry Kucerareplied to: RE: rings

Hi Spidy Yes, they do. Saturn has the brightest, most impressive rings in our solar system, but the other gas giant planets, Jupiter, Uranus, and Nep...

3/29/2017

Terry Kucerareplied to: RE: Solar Spacecraft

Hi Sophia, In 2018 NASA will be launching the Solar Probe Plus mission (https://science.nasa.gov/missions/solar-probe). This spacecraft will go clo...

3/27/2017

Terry Kucerareplied to: RE: Duration of Sunspots

Hi, They can last for weeks or even, for very large sunspot groups, months, although the sunspots groups change during that time. The Sun rotates eve...

3/27/2017

Terry Kucera

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