So, what do I do? Well, I'm looking for waves in the solar atmosphere. Sounds pretty weird, eh? Why am I doing this? I'm hoping that it might explain how the solar atmosphere gets to be so hot.
The outer solar atmosphere, called the corona, is the part of the Sun you can see during an eclipse. The corona is very hot, 2 million degrees Celsius, much hotter than the surface of the Sun which is only 6000 degrees Celsius. This is a bit confusing, as we might expect the temperature to drop as we move further away from the surface of the Sun and out into space, but it doesn't. The temperature actually increases as you go up through the atmosphere. It's a bit like having a bonfire and finding that it gets hotter as you go further away, across to the other side of the garden.
So the big question which I am trying to answer is: why is the corona so hot and how is it heated?
One possible answer to this mystery is that the energy for heating the corona is carried there by waves. So, I'm looking for these waves! Follow my trail and see how far I've got.