HAO Education Pages

A part of the mission of the High Altitude Observatory is to enhance and contribute to solar and solar-terrestrial physics education. The HAO education pages are designed for the use of both teachers and students. The material is arranged according to increasing skill level:

		Basic Facts, Q & A
		Slide Sets, Image Maps, Suggested Reading
		Historical Material
		Lecture Notes, Tutorials

HAO offers appointments for undergraduate and graduate students, and also hosts both levels of students through the SOARS program. HAO scientific staff engage in various community outreach activities, development of curriculum material such as educational slide sets, and participate in project LEARN. HAO is a division of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, which has many additional opportunities for education and training. More information on current NCAR educational activities can be found in the 2000 Annual Scientific Report.

Basic Facts

Question and Answer

General

1. What type of star is the Sun?
2. What are the physical characteristics of the Sun?
3. What kind of light does the Sun emit?
4. What are some historical observations of the Sun?
5. Why is it important to study the Sun?
6. How does one study the Sun?

Solar Physics

1. What is the history of solar physics?
2. Does the Sun have a surface?
3. Does the brightness of the Sun change over time?
4. How does the Sun work (what goes on inside)?
5. What are the key areas of solar research today?
6. What is a sunspot?
7. What is a coronal mass ejection?
8. Why is convection important in Solar Physics?

Solar-Terrestrial Physics

1. What is the history of solar-terrestrial physics?
2. What are the northern lights, or aurorae?
3. How does the Sun affect communications?
4. How does the Sun affect climate?
5. What is space weather?
6. The Ionosphere and Upper Atmospheric Electrodynamics
7. Space Physics Tutorial

Resources

Slide Sets

• Southwestern Archeoastronomy
• The Sun: A Pictorial Introduction

Image Maps

• Visit an Eclipse
• Visit the Solar Interior

Suggested Reading

• Introductory, historical, and upper-level books
• Windows to the Universe
• The Stanford SOLAR Center
• Other web sites
• Glossary
• CU Solar System Collaboratory

Great Moments in the History of Solar Physics

        1223 BC The oldest eclipse record

        ca. 350 BC Sun circling under a sheltering sky

    ca. 250 BC The distance to the Sun     968 The first mention of the solar corona

    1128 The first sunspot drawing     1185 The first description of solar prominences

1543 The Sun moves to center stage

          1609 The Sun in focus

1610 First telescopic observations of sunspots

1644 The Sun as a star     1645-1715 Sunspots vanish

1687 The mass of the Sun

          1774-1801 The physical nature of sunspots

1838 The solar constant

                    1843 The sunspot cycle                 1845 The first solar photograph
            1848 The sunspot number

1859 The chemical composition of the Sun

                                                                1931 The coronagraph

Suggested further readings on the history of solar physics

	Lecture Notes and Tutorials
	Summer School Lectures 1999 Philip Judge
	Non-Uniqueness of Atmospheric Modeling Philip Judge

Return to HAO homepage.

-Written by Paul Charbonneau.
-Last revised by cmw@ucar.edu on 24 January 2001.

Copyright 2001, NCAR.