[Past Event] Solar Cycle: Centuries of Discovery | Ryan Ranch

Course Description:

On the surface of the Sun, spots appear and fade in a predictable cycle. In medieval Russia, China and Korea, monks and court astronomers recorded the appearance of these dark shapes, interpreting them as omens of things to come. In Western Europe, by contrast, the sun was regarded as part of the unchanging celestial realm, and it took observations through telescopes by Galileo and others to establish the reality of solar imperfections. In the nineteenth century, amateur astronomers discovered that sunspots ebb and flow about every eleven years, spurring speculation about their influence on the weather and even the stock market. We will range across cultures and history, leading us to the satellites orbiting the Sun today and the current scientific understanding of stars and their magnetic fields.