Tomorrow's class will take place in the Library Garden where we will observe the sun

with a solartelescope and do the following activities:

Activity (1): Surface Features of the Sun

Recognize that the sun has surface features such as sunspots,

prominences, and solar flares that are visible with proper optical filters and
a telescope.

Take a photo of the solar disk or draw what you see with the telescope.

Identify the surface features on the solar disk

Estimate the size of the largest sunspots and compare it to the size of
Earth

Sunspots were discovered by Galileo after the invention of the telescope

in 1610

Activity (2): The Rotating Sun

Compare the photo taken in Activity (1) with three other photos from NSAS
Solar Dynamics Observatory, each taken a week earlier (so the four
photos cover the period of a month)

Recognize that the surface features of the sun are not fixed

Conclude that the sun is not stationary but is rotating

Estimate the rotation period of the sun

The rotation of the sun is among the empirical evidence for the "solar
nebula" model of the origin of the solar system

The rotation of the sun was first observed by Galileo after the invention of
the telescope in 1610

Activity (3): The Sun is a Ball of Gas

From the four photos in Activity (2), compare how the various surface
features rotate

Students should recognize that features near the equator rotate more
quickly than those near the equator

Compare this with the Earth where all points on Earth's solid surface
rotate at the same rate

Only liquid and gaseous objects show different rotational speeds for points
at different longitude

Being too hot for a liquid phase, the sun must be in the gas phase (the
extreme heat makes the gas in a plasma state)

In ~ 1630, Christopher Scheiner was the first to notice that the rotation of
higher latitudes points on the sun is slower than those close to the equator

At the equator, the sun completes one rotation every 25 days, in 30 days
in mid latitude, and in 35 days near the poles