"Exploring the Solar Atmosphere: A Journey through the Sun's Spectrum" Prof. Lyndsay Fletcher

Prof. Lyndsay Fletcher University of Glasgow
"Exploring the Solar Atmosphere: A Journey through the Sun’s Spectrum"
It is said that astronomy became astrophysics when the science of spectroscopy was first applied to the stars.
Spectroscopy refers to the analysis of radiation when it is split up by wavelength; by doing this many properties of the material that is emitting or absorbing the radiation can be deduced. In the case of the Sun, the most familiar spectral features are the strong absorption lines called the Fraunhofer lines, discovered in the early 19th century and identified some years later as belonging to particular chemical elements.
This gives rise to the idea of the ‘chemical fingerprint’ that can be used also to identify the composition of distant stars. However, spectroscopy can tell us much more. With spectroscopy we can work out speed, temperature, density and other properties of the solar material.
Several powerful telescopes, on the ground and in space, are carrying out spectroscopy of the solar atmosphere from its visible surface to its far outer layers.
In this talk Prof. Fletcher will introduce some of the science of spectroscopy in its application to the Sun, discuss some recent and forthcoming telescopes and satellites for spectroscopy, and describe some of what we have learned from these about the astrophysics of the Sun.