Synopses & Reviews
The first edition of The Sun From Space, completed in 1999, focused on the early accomplishments of three solar spacecraft, SOHO, Ulysses and Yohkoh, primarily during a minimum in the Sun's 11-year cycle of magnetic activity. This comprehensive Second Edition includes the main findings of these three spacecraft over an entire activity cycle, including two minima and a maximum, and discusses the significant results of six further solar missions. It contains the relevant discoveries of the past decade, integrated into chapters completely rewritten for the purposes of this book. This provides a fresh perspective on the major topics of solar enquiry, written in an enjoyable, easily understood text accessible to all readers, from the interested layperson to the student or professional. After describing the scientific objectives of the nine solar missions and a historical perspective on studies of the Sun and heliosphere, the author presents key advances in our understanding of the solar interior, the heating of the million-degree outer atmosphere of the Sun, known as the solar corona, the origin and nature of the solar winds, the cause, prediction and propagation of explosive solar flares and coronal mass ejections, and all aspects of space-weather interactions of the Sun with the Earth, with unprotected astronauts on the Moon or Mars, and with spacecraft in outer space. The author is known also for his famous books "Astrophysical Formulae", "Sun, Earth and Sky", and the prize-winning "Wanderers in Space", he has succeeded once again in addressing a complex scientific topic in a very approachable way. Hence, this generously illustrated book, whilst primarily addressing students, will also be of interest to a broader readership covering all levels from the amateur to the expert.
Synopsis
Based on the main findings of nine solar spacecraft missions, this book offers information on key advances in the field. It also provides the scientific objective of those missions and historical perspective on studies of the sun and heliosphere.
Synopsis
This volume is a comprehensive, up-to-date account of solar astrophysics and how our perception and knowledge of this star have evolved as mankind has elucidated ever more of its mysteries. The emphasis of this second edition of The Sun from Space is on the last decade, which includes the findings of the SOHO, Ulysses, and Yohkoh solar spacecraft missions over an entire 11-year cycle of solar activity, the results of the RHESSI solar spacecraft launched during this interval, the early findings of the recently launched Hinode and STEREO solar spacecraft, and the ACE and Wind spacecraft that extend our investigations of the Sun to its varying input to Earth over the past ten years.
Table of Contents
1. Instruments for a revolution.- 2. Discovering space.- 3. Exploring unseen depths of the sun.- 4. Solving the sun's heating crisis.- 5. Winds across the void.- 6. Our violent sun.- 7. Space weather.