Stanford’s Wilcox Solar Observatory, located just south of the main campus, began collecting daily observations of the Sun's magnetic field in May 1975 with the goal of understanding changes in the Sun and how those changes affect the Earth. Twenty years later, in December 1995, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) launched, carrying the Michelson Doppler Imager, an instrument that measures magnetic fields in the photosphere, that was designed and operated by Stanford’s solar group. Continuing Stanford’s long history of studying our nearest star, the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) was launched on February 11, 2010, bringing with it the ability to photograph the sun almost constantly without interference from Earth’s atmosphere. Every day, data from SDO are processed, analyzed, and made available to the public from the Joint Science Operations Center, which is housed here on Stanford’s campus.

• Instructors: Alex Koufos, Philip Mansfield, Charles Baldner, Cristina Rabello Soares, Arthur Amezcua
• Organizer: Katie Frey
• Location: Online (link provided upon registration) / KIPAC Tea
• Date/Time: 10:40am-11:40am, Tuesday, February 10, 2026

This event is being hosted online by KIPAC and may include some announcements and information of interest to that community at the start of the scheduled time.

Interested in the sun? ☀️On February 11th you can see a timelapse video of the sun, and, if it’s sunny, we will have a solar telescope outside the East Entrance to Green Library. Also on February 11th, learn how to find and use solar data by joining our SunPy workshop.