Hi.
Well, just like any other group of people we have lots of different hobbies. You can read more about some of them on our profiles. Myself, I like to bicycle, read, and play mandolin.

I was not much into sports when I was a kid, although I did some swimming. I did not really find physical activities I enjoyed until I got to college.

I do like being a space scientist. I have not, however, been in space - that is pretty unusual - most space scienctist stay no the ground and use telescopes or robotic spacecraft to get information about space.

You do have to go to a college with good science and mathprograms (especially physics), and go to a graduate school where there are departments that do the kind of research you are interested in. Not all schools have that.

In a broad sort of way, we thing that solar storms happen when the Sun's magnetic field gets all tangled and stretched. Then it can snap back into a simpler shape, when it does that it releases energy so that material goes shotting off the sun. The ejections (called coronal mass ejections, or CMEs) can come towards Earth where they can cause disturbances in our magnetic field. This intern can lead to the aurora (northern and southern lights) and problems with things like spacecraft and power systems.

I don't know why this particular week is solar week - one of the organizers will have to answer that.

cheers,
Terry