We have worshiped it as a god. We have erected temples and monuments to celebrate its seasonal gyrations. We have even sacrificed children to insure its daily rising and return. For many humans, the Sun is still a magical orb enshrouded in mystery, and not merely a ball of plasma heated to incandescence. Billions of people regard it as a reliable source of light and heat that banishes the fearful night, causes plants to grow, and warms our bodies. They may wonder how this happens, but the reasons are not nearly as important as simply acknowledging the primordial facts that have been known to humans for tens of thousands of years or longer: Light; heat; life.

Sometimes it can be more important to know where the Sun isn't, than where the Sun is. Humans have always been terrified of total solar eclipses - those rare times when, despite all human action and precaution, the Sun vanishes from the sky for 5 minutes, to be replaced by a disconcerting 'black hole' crowned by a ghostly corona. It took centuries of study, and some of the best minds of the Ancient World, but eclipses were finally blamed, not on an angry Sun, but on a predictable lunar passage.

Despite thousands of years of admiration, the vast majority of humans today have still not had the experience of safely exploring its incandescent surface to see its many details and blemishes. The Sun remains a blinding disk in the sky that can cause blindness, except under special atmospheric conditions. Ancient Chinese astrologers watched Sunrises each day, and through the thick horizon atmosphere could comfortably see the solar disk. They noted blemishes that we now see as Sunspots, but other details were as muddled as our view of the lunar disk features which subtend the same angle.

Even most amateur astronomers do not have the equipment to scan the solar surface. Solar astronomy is for many a rather passé subject compared to planetary studies, or scanning the Universe for deep sky treasures. Unlike the rest of the Universe with its many nebulae and star clusters, to study the Sun you need expensive hydrogen-alpha filters, but the investment is worthwhile. Where else, among the thousands of other targets in the sky, can you find something that changes like the proverbial five-minute Boston weather? Only the Sun really dazzles us each day with a reformed countenance, thanks to the shifting patinas of magnetic fields. Today's Sun will look different than next-weeks Sun, but your favorite binary star, nebula or star cluster will just sit there in its eternal arrogance and stare back at you unchanged. On your death bed, only the Sun will have passed through as many transforming days as you did to get to where you are now.

Since Galileo first studied the Sun and dashed the millennia-old notion of Solar Perfection, astronomers have studied the comings and goings of its Sunspots and other stormy details with an intensity previously reserved for soothsayers trying to divine the future from tea leaves. The ebb and flow of these storms and spots eventually became tied to the workings of human technologies, global climate changes, and the dazzling auroral lights. Now, solar science has become something of a soothsaying practice unique in astronomy, because definite cause-and-effect chains do seem to connect solar storms and 'space weather' to things that humans rely upon in the 21st Century. Our ancestors only worried about seasonal changes and its daily rising and setting. Today we worry about the Sun's impact on global power grids, satellite systems, and navigation.

We are deeply convinced that with new data, a refined mathematical model, and some breakthroughs in thinking about solar physics, we will eventually be able to create accurate daily forecasts of solar activity. At the present time, however, we cannot even predict how strong the next Sunspot cycle will be, or when Sunspot maximum will occur. The Sun has 12,000 times the surface area of Earth, and only in the last 30 years can we create accurate 24-hour forecasts for Boston weather. We may have to wait a while before solar forecasting becomes less of a Soothsayers art, than a scientist's calculation!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Circular figures with several radiating lines are believed by some to represent the action 'let go’ or ‘release’, and in other applications the figure may represent the Sun. This petroglyph, with it’s numerous radiating lines probably represents the Sun and is found near Lanfair, CA . The image was probably made by the Chemehuevi, a sub group of the Shoshone, between 500 and 2000 years ago. Credit: Courtesy - Donald Austin.

Solar eclipse viewed from MIR space station. August 11, 1999

Total solar eclipse are regarded by all humans as an event of tremendous significance .Anyone who has ever seen one understands perfectly why this is so. Credit: Courtesy - Fred Espenak.

The Hinode satellite views the million-degree corona and sees a surface dotted by thousands of microflares. Credit: Courtesy - Hinode XRT.