Science Will Stare Directly Into the Sun--And Love It

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• 00:06

  For Scientific American Science quickly, I'm Rachel Feltman.

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  Life as we know it couldn't exist without the sun,

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  but we know surprisingly little about our host star.

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  That's where the field of heliophysics comes in.

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  And 2025 is set to be a banner year for folks who study the Sun.

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  Here to tell us more is Megan Bartels, a senior news reporter at Scientific American.

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  Megan, thanks so much for coming on to chat today.

• 00:32

  Thanks so much for having me.

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  First question, obvious question, what is heliophysics?

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  Yeah, so heliophysics is the study of the sun and also its influence on the solar system.

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  And that's a really big topic because the solar wind,

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  which is basically like plasma particles that flow off the sun,

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  also the Sun's magnetic field, those two phenomena stretch way beyond the orbit of Pluto,

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  more than 100 times the distance that Earth is from the Sun.

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  Wow.

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  Yeah.

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  And why is 2025 such an exciting year for heliophysics?

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  Yeah.

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  So there are a couple of different things that are aligning this year.

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  First, the sun has been and still is in the maximum phase of its 11 year solar cycle.

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