VOOZH about

URL: https://science.nasa.gov/learn/heat/

⇱ NASA HEAT - NASA Science

Suggested Searches

NASA Heliophysics Education

The NASA Heliophysics Education Activation Team's (NASA HEAT) Framework for Heliophysics Education outlines key concepts, practices, and strategies for integrating solar science into educational curricula and learning activities. It provides educators, scientists, and outreach professionals with a cohesive set of Heliophysics Big Ideas that align with the three questions that drive NASA's heliophysics research. 

Heliophysics Big Ideas

The Sun can provide a fun and exciting laboratory for exploring magnetism, gravity, light, energy, and much more! Learn how to integrate heliophysics concepts and resources into existing educational and outreach activities by exploring the Heliophysics Big Ideas below.

Framework for Heliophysics Education

Heliophysics is the study of the Sun and its impacts on Earth, the solar system, and humanity.

NASA Heliophysicists ask:
What are the impacts of the changing Sun on humanity?

NASA Heliophysicists ask:
How do Earth, the solar system, and the heliosphere respond to changes on the Sun?

NASA Heliophysicists ask:
What causes the Sun to vary?

The Sun is really big and influences all objects in the solar system.

Heliophysics Big Idea 1.1
Driving Question: What are the impacts of the changing Sun on humanity?
Relevant Topics: corona, lunar eclipse, lunar phases, Newton's Law of Gravity, seasons, solar eclipse, solar system, transits

The Sun is active and can impact technology on Earth via space weather.

Heliophysics Big Idea 1.2
Driving Question: What are the impacts of the changing Sun on humanity?
Relevant Topics: atmosphere, aurora, coronal mass ejection, geomagnetic storm, ionization, magnetic fields, magnetic reconnection, magnetosphere, magnetotail, plasma, radio blackout, solar cycle, solar flare, solar wind, space weather, sunspots, Van Allen belts

The Sun's energy drives Earth's climate, but the climate is in a delicate balance and is changing due to human activity.

Heliophysics Big Idea 1.3
Driving Question: What are the impacts of the changing Sun on humanity?
Relevant Topics: atmosphere, climate change, energy, greenhouse effect, radiation

Life on Earth has evolved with complex diversity because of our location near the Sun. It is just right!

Heliophysics Big Idea 2.1
Driving Question: How do Earth, the solar system, and the heliosphere respond to changes on the Sun?
Relevant Topics: atmosphere, biosphere, energy, habitable zone, light, magnetosphere, photosynthesis, radiation

The Sun defines the space around it, which is different from interstellar space.

Heliophysics Big Idea 2.2
Driving Question: How do Earth, the solar system, and the heliosphere respond to changes on the Sun?
Relevant Topics: heliosphere, interstellar space, magnetic fields, plasma, solar wind, space weather

The Sun is the primary light source in the solar system.

Heliophysics Big Idea 2.3
Driving Question: How do Earth, the solar system, and the heliosphere respond to changes on the Sun?
Relevant Topics: electromagnetic spectrum, energy, light, photosynthesis, radiation, spectroscopy

The Sun is made of churning plasma, causing the surface to be covered with complex, tangled magnetic fields.

Heliophysics Big Idea 3.1
Driving Question: What causes the Sun to vary?
Relevant Topics: coronal mass ejection, electromagnetism, energy, ionization, magnetic fields, magnetic reconnection, plasma, solar cycle, solar flare, solar wind, space weather, sunspots

Energy from the Sun is created in the core and travels outward through the Sun and into the heliosphere.

Heliophysics Big Idea 3.2
Driving Question: What causes the Sun to vary?
Relevant Topics: convection, corona, energy, heliosphere, light, nuclear fusion, plasma, radiation, solar wind, space weather

👁 A rectangular image with black vertical rectangles at the bottle left and top right to indicate missing data. A young star-forming region is filled with wispy orange, red, and blue layers of gas and dust. The upper left corner of the image is filled with mostly orange dust, and within that orange dust, there are several small red plumes of gas that extend from the top left to the bottom right, at the same angle. The center of the image is filled with mostly blue gas. At the center, there is one particularly bright star, that has an hourglass shadow above and below it. To the right of that is what looks a vertical eye-shaped crevice with a bright star at the center. The gas to the right of the crevice is a darker orange. Small points of light are sprinkled across the field, brightest sources in the field have extensive eight-pointed diffraction spikes that are characteristic of the Webb Telescope.

Our Sun, like all stars, has a life cycle.

Heliophysics Big Idea 3.3
Driving Question: What causes the Sun to vary?
Relevant Topics: light, nuclear fusion, solar cycle, spectroscopy, stellar evolution, sunspots

Explore Heliophysics Education

Framework for Heliophysics Education

These nine Heliophysics Big Ideas form the Framework for Heliophysics Education. Learn more about how to use the framework to find resources for your audiences.

Heliophysics Resource Database

Search the Heliophysics Resource Database for curated heliophysics lesson plans, digital activities, hands-on learning, and more.

Heliophysics Missions

Learn more about NASA's heliophysics missions and find learning resources.

Heliophysics Topics A-Z

Explore popular heliophysics topics, A-Z.

The Sun now

Solar Dynamics Observatory

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is designed to help us understand the Sun's influence on Earth and Near-Earth space by studying the solar atmosphere on small scales of space and time and in many wavelengths simultaneously. Solar images are taken by an instrument aboard SDO called the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA). AIA images the solar atmosphere in multiple wavelengths to link changes on the surface to interior changes. Data includes images of the Sun in 10 wavelengths channels every 10 seconds. Because we can't see extreme ultraviolet light with our eyes, different colors are added to the data collected by AIA so that we can see the features of the Sun. Different wavelengths of light are represented by different colors.

Real-time Images of the Sun
👁 Image
AIA images the solar atmosphere in multiple wavelengths.
NASA/SDO
Keep Exploring

Discover More Topics From NASA