Sun
Solar and Stellar X-Ray Group (SSXG) researchers study solar and stellar atmospheres, which are composed of extremely hot, highly dynamic plasma. Activities include designing, testing, building and operating instruments, analyzing space and ground-based observations, and creating theoretical models. SSXG researchers lead or are major partners in a number of instrumentation projects, links to which can be found below.
Leon Golub, Edward DeLuca, Kathy Reeves, Jay Bookbinder, Mark Weber, Steve Saar, Kelly Korreck, Paola Testa, Alisdair Davey, Henry (Trae) Winter, Yingna Su, Antonia Savcheva, Justin Kasper, Jonathan Slavin, Nicholas Murphy, Hui Tian, Michael Stevens, Anthony Case, Jonathan Sattelberger, Sean McKillop, Patricia Jibben, Nicole Schanche, Patrick McCauley
SSXG Group Photo with Summer Interns
History:
The Solar & Stellar X-Ray Group (SSXG) was founded in 1975 by Dr. Giuseppe (Pippo) Vaiana to continue the research effort he began at American Science and Engineering (AS&E), which led to the first high resolution X-ray images of the Sun from sounding rockets and later from the S-054 telescope on Skylab. In 1978, with the launch of the Einstein Observatory, the theme of a Solar-Stellar Connection was developed. Beginning in 1988, a series of sounding rocket flights led to the development of the multilayer method for high resolution X-ray imaging using the NIXT payload. This program led to the TRACE satellite in 1998, and more recently to the XRT on Hinode and to the AIA on SDO (see above for more details and links). The SSXG is part of the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
Hinode/XRT image taken in 2013. Learn more.
