An image of the solar corona captured by the SOHO spacecraft. It’s possible to take images of the solar corona by blocking the light coming directly from the Sun with an disk, creating an artificial eclipse within the instrument itself (Credits: ESA/NASA)
Solar Exterior
It’s essential for us to understand the flow of energy from the Sun to our planet. To say that our local star is important really is an understatement. We are here because the Sun provides all the light, heat and energy required for life on Earth; and occasionally our nurturing star becomes overactive and poses a threat to our health, and to the infrastructures of our technological society. UK scientists are leading the effort to discover how the Sun’s energy travels from its surface (the ‘photosphere’) through its stormy atmosphere (the ‘corona’) and then escapes into space. If we can understand how the corona is heated in an ‘ordinary’ star like our Sun we can also learn more about the billions of other stars in the Universe.
Solar Exterior - Latest Articles 
When the Sun erupts
Vast clouds of magnetic field and charged particle plasma are blasted away from the Sun. We call these eruptions Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs). We study the magnetic fields in the Sun’s atmosphere dur...
The Sun's 'wrong way around' heat
If you touch a glowing-hot lump of coal, you’ll surely burn your fingers. If, more cautiously, you bring your hand to within a few centimetres but no closer, you’ll feel the heat but you won’t get bur...
The Sun in 3D
The STEREO (Solar Terrestrial RElations Observatory) mission is an ambitious attempt to make three-dimensional observations of the Sun. To do this, two near-identical NASA spacecraft have recently bee...
