My name is Peter. My job is to try and find out how hot the solar atmosphere is and what it is made of. Not many people do this for a living, so am I crazy or just very lucky?

I don't have to travel to the Sun to do this. I study the fingerprints of the Sun. These come from the light which the Sun gives out and its spectrum. I enjoy being a solar detective.

During a total eclipse most of the light from the Sun is blocked out by the moon. You only see the fuzzy glow around the black disk which comes from the Sun's atmosphere, called the solar corona Here's my favourite eclipse picture.

Courtesy of the High Altitude Observatory, Boulder, USA

Surprised? So was everyone else - in fact, at first no one believed it. It is like having a bonfire and finding out that the further you move away from it, the hotter it gets! So what convinced them?

Follow me and I'll show you the evidence we have for such high temperatures, and also how to find out what the Sun is really made of.

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