A fascinating and comprehensive guide to the sun - our home star - which remains the greatest mystery in the solar system, and why understanding it is pivotal to our future existence here on Earth.

In 1869, a great mystery was born. As astronomers observed a total solar eclipse, for the first time they saw the faint glow of the solar corona, the sun's outer atmosphere.

Measurements of a previously unknown wavelength that made up this solar light sparked hot debate among scientists, but it was another sixty years before they discovered that this wavelength was in fact iron being burned at a staggering 3 million degrees Celsius.

With the sun's surface only 6,000 degrees, this shouldn't be possible. What we now knew about the sun appeared to defy the laws of physics - and nature.

Product Information:
• ISBN: 9781789290431
• Author: Colin Stuart
• Publisher: Michael O'Mara
• Format: Hardback
• Pages: 288
• Dimensions: 21.5 x 13.3 x 2.7cm