Sun Prominence NASA Celebrates Solar Week with Education Activities and a NASA Chat

Eight planets and their moons, tens of thousands of asteroids, and trillions of comets revolve around the sun. One of these is our Earth, orbiting the sun at an average distance of about 92,960,000 miles (149,600,000 kilometers). The sun is a huge, glowing ball that provides light, heat, and other energy to our Earth. The world is observing Solar Week from Oct. 18-22, 2010 -- a great time to learn more about our sun and how it affects our solar system.

On Thursday, Oct. 21 from 3:00 - 4:00 p.m. EDT, Dr. David Hathaway, a solar scientist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, will answer your questions about our sun: how it works, why it has cycles and how it produces solar phenomena -- such as sunspots, solar flares and solar storms.

Join the Chat

To participate in the live chat, simply return to this page http://www.nasa.gov/connect/chat/solar_chat2.html a few minutes before the chat time on Oct. 21. The chat module will appear at the bottom of this page. After you log in, wait for the chat module to be activated at 3:00 p.m. EDT, then ask your questions!

More About Chat Expert David Hathaway

Dr. Hathaway received his doctorate in Astrophysics from the University of Colorado in Boulder, CO in 1979. He worked for two years as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Advanced Study Program at the National Center for Atmospheric Research before taking a 3-year position as an Assistant Astronomer at the National Solar Observatory site in Sunspot, NM. He came to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL in 1984 where he has been a member of the solar physics group and served as its team leader from 1996 to 2010. He has written over 150 articles on the Sun and solar physics and has received three US patents. He has been the recipient of dozens of awards from within NASA and from the broader scientific community. Hathaway has served on numerous advisory committees as well as elected positions within scientific organizations.

Dr. Hathaway’s primary research interests include the nature and origin of the sunspot cycle and the fluid dynamics of the Sun’s interior. His research includes constructing computer models for flows on the surface of the Sun and analysis programs for extracting those flows from satellite observations. He maintains a database on sunspots, including their sizes and positions, that extends back to the year 1874. This database is widely used by the solar physics community. Data plots, images, and animations produced by Dr. Hathaway are also widely used in many publications by both his scientific colleagues and the scientific press.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/connect/chat/solar_chat2.html