Our Sun by Christopher Cooper

Rating: 10/10

Our Sun tells the story of our nearest star from all sides imaginable.
For example it explains well how thermonuclear reactions are going on in the sun and how the energy that is generated in the core by fusing together hydrogen atoms gets all the way out of the sun, first by radiation transfer, later by convection etc. As a great bonus you can finally find out how come the solar corona's temperature is so high whilst the surface temperature is only 5700K. I found that part specially engaging, as I haven't come across another book about the Sun that would have touched upon that issue.

In this book there are very informative schematics, that explain the structure of the sun and you can see the Sun in different wavelengths on the beautiful images taken by Solar Dynamics Observatory.

The book also depicts the birth and evolution of the Sun, telling how it formed and what happened next. Various missions for observing the sun from space are also covered, and not just the present and past ones, but also some that should be launched in the near future.  According to "Our Sun" the next satellites to be launched with that should help us find out more about the sun should be launched in August 2014 - four identical spacecrafts of the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission, which would study the Earth's magnetosphere, but the data that the satellites will be collecting might help to learn more about how magnetic reconnection works in the Sun's corona.

The physical aspects of the sun are well covered in this book, but so is the history of solar observations.
That ofcourse starts already with the invention of the telescope and as you can find out by reading this book there are several contenders to the first person to observe sun spots.

In history part you can also find out about different theories that scientists had about the nature of that star. For example there was a theologian and scientist Palmer, who thought that the sun is a huge lens-shaped comet that concentrates God's light on Earth. Imagine that!

The scientific theories are just one part of many in this book, you can also find out about different ways for collecting solar energy and about different Sun gods in various cultures, for example one can find out that in Japanese myths there is a sun goddess by the name of Amaterasu and in Hinduism there's the Sun god Surya, who was cut into eight pieces by his father-in-law as he was too hot (literally) for his wife.

Overall it's an engaging read from the first page to the last with amazing illustrations, schematics and photographs.

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