View Post

Song of the Sun

In Sun by Brian Koberlein1 Comment

There’s a song of the Sun. It is produced by acoustic waves in the Sun’s interior, and the study of these waves is known as helioseismology.

View Post

Factor of Three

In Sun by Brian Koberlein1 Comment

When we discovered the Sun created its heat and light through nuclear fusion, we found that it emitted only a third of the neutrinos expected. The solution to that mystery led us to the discovery that neutrinos have mass.

View Post

Spot the Pattern

In Sun by Brian Koberlein1 Comment

We generally think of the Sun as a constant in our lives. It rises and sets regularly, and it seems to be an unchanging sphere of brilliant light. In fact, the Sun has a turbulent surface with prominences that fly off its surface, granules caused by convection in its upper layers, and even the appearance of slightly cooler regions known as sunspots.

View Post

Rainbow Shadows

In Sun by Brian Koberlein0 Comments

The part of the solar atmosphere that produces the light we see is called the photosphere. The solar atmosphere above that is cooler than the photosphere, so it creates an absorption spectra. This is useful because we can use it to identify what atoms or molecules are in the upper atmosphere of the sun, and of course that helps tell us what the sun is made of.

View Post

Solar Wind

In Sun by Brian Koberlein0 Comments

The solar wind is a flow of ionized particles that stream outward from the Sun. It creates a bubble of ionized particles called the heliosphere, and we are just beginning to understand it.