In the Aug. 19 SN: Bulletins from the tick wars, roots of Rwandan genocide, spin-resistant spiders, making mums blue, tardigrade saga continues, HIV antibodies from cows, Maxwell’s demon aces memory test and more.
FICKLE FLAMES Streamers and filaments encircled most of the sun during a solar eclipse in 2016, when the sun’s activity was waning. The Aug. 21 solar eclipse will show physicists what the corona looks like when solar activity has quieted down even more.
© 2016 Constantinos Emmanoulidis, Miloslav Druckmüller
CHARGED UP Auroras are triggered in Earth’s atmosphere by the solar wind, a constant stream of charged particles wafting away from the sun. This photo of an aurora was taken from the International Space Station on June 26.
NASA
During a total solar eclipse in 1919, Arthur Eddington and colleagues tested Einstein’s theory of gravity. Although the results showed Einstein’s theory was correct and Newton’s was wrong, Newton’s math was good enough to predict where the eclipse would be.
F.W. DYSON, A.S. EDDINGTON, C. DAVIDSON
