The Sun

From the Discovery Channel. The sun is a star, lest we forget. It controls everything on Earth. It provides our light and heat. Light reaches us in 8 minutes. It is 30 million degrees at the sun's core, where nuclear fusion takes place. Photosphere, chromosphere, corona. Solar wind, magnetic field lines, sunspots. Prominences, flares, bursts of energy. Solar storms. We came from the stars! Astrophysicist Alex Filippenko is in ecstasy, and I am always fascinated by female astronomers and astrophysicists like Dr. Holly Gilbert. There are more and more women in these fields every year. Historically, the only female astronomers I can recall are William Herschel's sister, Caroline and Henrietta Leavitt.