The Solar Physics Group at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center was formed in the early 1970's in conjunction with the Apollo Skylab Mission. These pages contain an overview of solar physics itself along with highlights of our own work, our current projects, and possible future missions.

Sun Facts

Solar radius = 695,990 km = 432,470 mi = 109 Earth radii

Solar mass = 1.989 × 10³⁰ kg = 4.376 × 10³⁰ lb = 333,000 Earth masses

Solar luminosity (energy output of the Sun) = 3.846 × 10³³ erg/s

Surface temperature = 5770 K = 9,930° F

Surface density = 2.07 × 10^-7 g/cm³ = 1.6 × 10^-4 Air density

Surface composition = 70% H, 28% He, 2% (C, N, O, ...) by mass

Central temperature = 15,600,000 K = 28,000,000° F

Central density = 150 g/cm³ = 8 × Gold density

Central composition = 35% H, 63% He, 2% (C, N, O, ...) by mass

Solar age = 4.57 × 10⁹ yr  

Highlighted MSFC Solar Science Papers

Full List of Papers 

Sounding Rocket Papers

"The First Flight of the Marshall Grazing Incidence X-Ray Spectrometer (MaGIXS)" -  Updated 2025/1/14 (Savage et al., 2023)

"Marshall Grazing Incidence X-ray Spectrometer Slitjaw Imager Implementation and Performance" -  Updated 2025/1/14 (Vigil et al., 2021)

"Design for a portable calibration system for the Full-sun UV Rocket SpecTrometer instrument" -  Updated 2025/1/14 (Vigil et al., 2021)

"Calibration of the Marshall Grazing Incidence X-Ray Spectrometer Experiment. II. Flight Instrument Calibration" -  Updated 2025/1/14 (Athiray et al., 2021)

"Calibration of the MaGIXS Experiment. I. Calibration of the X-Ray Source at the X-Ray and Cryogenic Facility" -  Updated 2025/1/14 (Athiray et al., 2020)

"Discovery of Finely Structured Dynamic Solar Corona Observed in the Hi-C Telescope" -  Updated 2025/1/14 (Winebarger et al., 2014)

"The High-Resolution Coronal Imager (Hi-C)" -  Updated 2025/1/14 (Kobayashi et al., 2014)

Other Solar Science Papers

"How Small-scale Jetlike Solar Events from Miniature Flux Rope Eruptions Might Produce the Solar Wind" -  Updated 2025/1/14 (Sterling et al., 2024)

"Can Emission Measure Distributions Derived from Extreme-ultraviolet Images Accurately Constrain High-temperature Plasma?" -  Updated 2025/1/14 (Athiray & Winebarger 2024)

"A Publicly Available Multiobservatory Data Set of an Enhanced Network Patch from the Photosphere to the Corona" -  Updated 2025/1/14 (Kobelski et al., 2022)

"Coronal-jet-producing Minifilament Eruptions as a Possible Source of Parker Solar Probe Switchbacks" -  Updated 2025/1/14 (Sterling et al., 2020)

"Unfolding Overlapped Slitless Imaging Spectrometer Data for Extended Sources" -  Updated 2025/1/14 (Winebarger et al., 2019)

"Minifilament Eruptions that Drive Coronal Jets in a Solar Active Region" -  Updated 2025/1/14 (Sterling et al., 2016)

"What drives solar-EUV jets seen in equatorial coronal holes?" -  Updated 2025/1/14 (Adams & Moore, 2016)

"Small-scale filament eruptions as the driver of X-ray jets in solar coronal holes" -  Updated 2025/1/14 (Sterling et al., 2015)

"A Small-Scale Eruption Leading to a Blowout Macrospicule Jet in an On-Disk Coronal Hole" -  Updated 2025/1/14 (Adams et al., 2014)

"Defining the "Blind Spot" of Hinode EIS and XRT Temperature Measurements" -  Updated 2025/1/14 (Winebarger et al., 2012)

"Using a Differential Emission Measure and Density Measurements in an Active Region Core to Test a Steady Heating Model" -  Updated 2025/1/14 (Winebarger et al., 2011)

"A new method to quantify and reduce projection error in whole-solar-active-region parameters measured from vector magnetograms" -  Updated 2016/12/12 (Falconer et al., 2016)

"Trigger Mechanism of Solar Subflares in a Braided Coronal Magnetic Structure" -  Updated 2015/08/07 (Tiwari et al., 2014)

"Near-Sun Speed of CMEs and the Magnetic Nonpotentiality of their Source Active Regions"-  Updated 2015/08/07 (Tiwari et al., 2015)

"Predicting the Sun's Polar Fields with a Surface Flux Transport Model" -  Updated 2013/12/20 (Upton and Hathaway 2014)

"Giant Convection Cells Found on the Sun" -  Updated 2013/12/20 (Hathaway, Upton, and Colegrove 2013)

"A Curious History of Sunspot Penumbrae" -  Updated 2013/05/20 (Hathaway 2013)

"Energy release in the solar corona from spatially resolved magnetic braids" -  Updated 2013/01/29 (Cirtain et al. 2013)

"Measurements of the Sun's High-Latitude Meridional Circulation" -  Updated 2012/12/10 (Rightmire-Upton, Hathaway, and Kosak 2012)

"Supergranules as Probes of the Sun's Meridional Circulation" -  Updated 2012/11/02 (Hathaway 2012b)

"Prior Flaring as a Complement to Free Magnetic Energy for Forecasting Solar Eruptions" -  Updated 2012/06/05 (Falconer et al. 2012)

"Supergranules as Probes of Solar Convection Zone Dynamics" -  Updated 2012/04/02 (Hathaway 2012)

"The Limit of Magnetic-Shear Energy in Solar Active Regions" -  Updated 2012/03/2 (Moore, Falconer, and Sterling 2012)

"A Standard Law for the Equatorward Drift of the Sunspot Zones" -  Updated 2012/02/16 (Hathaway 2011)

"An Estimate of the Size and Shape of Sunspot Cycle 24 Based on Its Early Cycle Behavior Uning the Hathaway-Wilson-Reichmann Shape-Fitting Function" -  Updated 2011/03/14 (Wilson 2011a)

"Variations in the Axisymmetric Transport of Magnetic Elements on the Sun" -  Updated 2011/03/01 (Hathaway and Rightmire 2011)

"The Advection of Supergranules by the Sun's Axisymmetric Flows" -  Updated 2011/02/03 (Hathaway et al. 2010)

"A Tool for Empirical Forecasting of Major Flares, Coronal Mass Ejections, and Solar Particle Events from a Proxy of Active-Region Free Magnetic Energy" -  Updated 2011/02/03 (Falconer et al. 2011)

"Solar X-ray Jets, Type-II Spicules, Granule-Size Emerging Bipoles, and the Genesis of the Heliosphere" -  Updated 2011/01/20 (Moore et al. 2011)

"Predicting the Size and Timing of Sunspot Maximum for Cycle 24" -  Updated 2010/07/06 (Wilson 2010b)

"The Filament Eruption in the 3B Flare of July 29, 1973: Onset and Magnetic Field Configuration" -  Updated 2010/07/06 (Moore and LaBonte 1980)

"Triggering of Eruptive Flares: Destabilization of the Preflare Magnetic Field Configuration" -  Updated 2010/07/06 (Moore and Roumeliotis 1992)

"Variations in the Sun's Meridional Flow over a Solar Cycle" -  Updated 2010/03/29 (Hathaway and Rightmire 2010)

"Does the current minimum validate (or invalidate) cycle prediction methods" -  Updated 2010/03/16 (Hathaway 2010b)

"Solar Cycle and Anthropogenic Forcing of Surface-Air Temperature at Armagh Observatory, Northern Ireland" -  Updated 2010/03/16 (Wilson 2010a)

"The Solar Cycle" -  Updated 2010/03/02 (Hathaway 2010a)

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