A proposal for a spacecraft that would take a fresh look at the Sun — enabling a never-before-seen view of our star’s magnetic field — has received $2 million in funding from NASA for further study.

Scientists from the High Altitude Observatory will be onsite at Hovenweep National Monument

An NCAR-led project, CMEx, will attempt to understand the magnetic nature of solar eruptions and identify the magnetic sources of the solar wind.

NCAR is a leading partner in an effort to, for the first time, build a model that can simulate the entire near-Earth space environment, which stretches from the lower atmosphere out beyond the moon. 

Many coronal loops — ropey strands of plasma that scientists have long thought existed in the Sun’s atmosphere — may actually be optical illusions, according to a new paper that challenges prevailing assumptions of what we know, and don’t know, about the Sun.