This book is all about the Sun—its main characteristics, how it impacts our planet, and what space exploration has taught us about our life-giving star from the 20 century to the present day. Richly illustrated with mission photos, design diagrams, and infocharts, it will be a fascinating read for anybody interested in the Sun and our attempts to research it. This launches us into the meat of the story in the next section, which provides a detailed account of the many incredible solar missions launched over the decades, including SOHO and the Parker Solar Probe, and their critical contributions to solar physics. Along the way, we will explore the deep space environment and the discovery of the solar wind, while closer to home, we will take a look at the Sun-Earth interaction and newly discovered solar phenomena such as microflares. Explained throughout the chapters are the complex instruments that made such missions possible as well as current mission plans for the next wave of solar physics research. weiterlesen