News Astronomy

Eclipse watchers catch part of the sun’s surface fleeing to space

Spectrometer designed to measure speed, temperature and more to be deployed during U.S. eclipse in August

Eclipse in Svalbard

NIGHT AND DAY  Solar physicists gained new insight into the origins of coronal mass ejections as they watched the 2015 solar eclipse darken the sky above Svalbard, Norway.

© 2015 Miloslav Druckmüller, Shadia Habbal, Peter Aniol, Pavel Štarha

By Lisa Grossman

- More than 2 years ago

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For the first time, researchers have watched relatively cool parcels of plasma speed away from the surface of the sun and off into space, all the while cocooned in a million-degree flare.