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A fun book I just read is "The Great American Eclipse", by David Baron - about the Total Solar Eclipse of 1878. Many notable astronomers, including M...

3/24/2021

KD Lekareplied to: RE: name meaning

Heehee - where's Dawn to answer? :-) Also, both of my kids have names that have Sun-related meanings. -KD

3/24/2021

KD Lekareplied to: RE: most exciting sun research today?

Hi - see my reply as well under "most interesting recent work", about people who are digging into very old records and manuscripts and even archeology...

3/24/2021

KD Lekareplied to: RE: News about the Sun

Hi; This may sound odd, but there have been a number of recent studies that are digging up old (hundreds of years old!) observations of sunspots that...

3/24/2021

KD Lekareplied to: RE: Northern lights

FYI there is a great "Picture of the Day" today at spaceweather.com of the aurora dancing over the erupting volcano in Iceland!

3/24/2021

KD Lekareplied to: RE: Jobs for scientists

Hi; I'd like to echo Kris' answer that there is quite a large variety of jobs available, maybe not always what you think you'll be doing, but interes...

3/24/2021

KD Lekareplied to: RE: How do we study the sun?

Sorry, to follow up as well - we can study the light from the Sun from the ground (from telescopes such as DKIST, see nso.edu/dkist), or from space su...

3/24/2021

KD Lekareplied to: RE: How do we study the sun?

Hi; For the most part, we use the light that the Sun shines to study it, just like telescopes use the light from stars to study them. When we spread...

3/24/2021

KD Lekareplied to: RE: coronal holes

Hi; I will first say that while we have some idea of what coronal holes are, physically, there is still a lot of research to be done -- we especially...

3/24/2020

KD Lekareplied to: RE: Scientist parents?

OK, this is fun to talk about. But I do want to stress what Mitzi said -- fostering curiosity and education is just key. My dad (who was an attorney...

10/24/2018

KD Lekareplied to: RE: Magnetic field

Hi John; I'm going to elaborate a little on Dawn's answer, with just a little bit of, "we don't really know". We do know it to about that level of...

10/24/2018

KD Lekareplied to: RE: sun and global warming

Hi; In a very real sense, of course it does -- because without the Sun, there would be absolutely no warmth on Earth besides what comes from plate te...

10/24/2018

KD Lekareplied to: RE: depth of sunspots

Hi - just to add to what Paulette wrote, the reason that the sunspots are darker (cooler) is due to the intense magnetic fields there. And to echo wh...

10/24/2018

KD Lekareplied to: RE: storms

Another good website (with awesome pictures!): spaceweather.com

3/20/2018

KD Lekareplied to: RE: most interesting fact

The fact that always befuddles me is that while it only takes about 8 minutes or light to get to us from the surface of the Sun, photons produced deep...

3/20/2018

KD Lekareplied to: RE: solar storm

Hi; following up on Alessandra's answer, there would be differences in just how the others planets may be impacted, due to things like whether they h...

3/20/2018

KD Lekareplied to: RE: near sun planetary exploration

Hi - hmmm, I honestly don't know, and so will defer to my colleagues. Our technology has improved such that a new mission would certainly be more ca...

3/20/2018

KD Lekareplied to: RE: eclipse

Hi -- I did! I opted for this one to do no science, but to just enjoy with my family in Nebraska. I still couldn't help calling over to other people...

3/20/2018