Secrets of the Sun

NOVA Labs: Magnetism influences when and how solar storms erupt.

NOVA Labs: Bursts of plasma released by the Sun create "space weather" around our planet.

NOVA Labs: What are the processes that produce the Sun's light and heat?

NOVA Labs: How does the Sun's composition influence its behavior?

NOVA Labs: Most of what we know about solar science comes from reading the Sun's light.

NOVA Labs: New solar telescopes are allowing us to see the Sun like never before.

Learn about solar storms and do your own research using images from NASA telescopes.

NOVA Labs: What would happen if a solar storm overwhelmed Earth's natural defenses?

NOVA Labs will launch May, 2012.

NOVA Labs: Learn how to use the Helioviewer, a tool at the heart of NOVA's Sun Lab.

It contains 99.9 percent of all the matter in our solar system and sheds hot plasma at nearly a million miles an hour. The temperature at its core is a staggering 27 million degrees Fahrenheit. It convulses, it blazes, it sings. You know it as the sun. Scientists know it as one of the most amazing physics laboratories in the universe.