Space Flight
How are you studying the sun?
Answered by
Dr. Jeff Hall
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Dr. Jeff Hall
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Dr. Jeff Hall Astronomer, Director, Lowell Observatory
TRANSCRIPT:
I came to Lowell in 1992 on a long-term project designed to observe the sun and stars like the sun. The sun varies periodically. The familiar 11-year sunspot cycle -- it turns out the stars do that as well. We would like to understand how the sun behaves over time scales of centuries, millennia, but I don't particularly want to have to sit around observing it for 2,000 years. I would be thoroughly sick of the project after that much time.
So we use this wonderful laboratory that goes wheeling by every night to get a broader picture on how our own star might work. If you could find 50, 100 stars very similar to the sun, they might provide a more timely snapshot of how our own star behaves on the long term.
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