The Sun We Share

Book excerpt: As the dominant star in our sky, the Sun has been alternately worshipped as a god and viewed as a threat over the course of human history. Despite significant advances in astronomy, the Sun continues to surprise us, most notably in its production of so-called "space weather" that impacts technology here on Earth. This unique mixture of familiarity and mystery has made the Sun a main character in popular media over the past three centuries. This book examines how popular media have adapted to our ever-changing understanding of the inner workings of the Sun. It provides a valuable way to observe the inherent problems of communicating science to a non-technical audience. Chapters cut through the widespread hype found on the Internet, and instead explore our ever-improving scientific exploration of the Sun, the persistent misconceptions surrounding it, the fate of the Sun (and its relation to the fate of the Earth) and why, despite comments to the contrary by Oscar Wilde, the average person should care about sunspots.