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Science 24 August 1984:
Vol. 225. no. 4664, pp. 793 - 800
DOI: 10.1126/science.225.4664.793
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Articles

The Magnetic Activity Sunlike Stars

Arthur H. Vaughan 1

1 Scientific staff member of the Applied Optics Division, Perkin-Elmer Corporation, 7421 Orangewood Avenue, Post Office Box 3115, Garden Grove, California 92641, and staff associate of the Mount Wilson and Las Campanas observatories, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Pasadena, California 91101.

Sunspots, flares, and the myriad time-varying "events" observable in the Sun—the only star whose surface we can examine in detail—are testimony that the Sun is a magnetically variable or active star. Its magnetic field, carried into interplanetary space by the solar wind, produces observable changes in Earth's magnetosphere and variations in the flux of galactic cosmic-ray particles incident upon Earth's upper atmosphere. Centuries of observation have enabled solar scientists to recognize that the Sun's magnetism exists and varies in a globally organized pattern that is somehow coupled to the Sun's rotation. Within the past decade O. C. Wilson demonstrated that analogs of solar activity exist and can be studied in many other dwarf stars. From the continuing study, knowledge of the precise rates of rotation of the stars under investigation is being gained for the first time. The results are expected to increase our understanding of the origin of solar activity and stellar activity in general.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Torsional Oscillations of the Sun.
H. B. Snodgrass and R. Howard (1985)
Science 228, 945-952
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