Heliophysicist

Here’s a few things you should know about the sun: It’s the largest object in the solar system, containing more than 99.8 percent of the solar system’s total mass; it’s approximately 4.5 billion years old; it’s 109 times the size of earth; and it’s really, really hot (about 27 million degrees Fahrenheit, to be exact).

If you’re a Heliophysicist, you already know all of this — and much, much more — because it’s your job to study the physics of the sun. Named for “Helios,” the Greek god of the sun, a Heliophysicist is often known as a Solar Physicist, which is a fancy name for a “sun Scientist. ”

Employed by colleges, universities, museums, research labs, and government agencies, including the likes of NASA, you use telescopes, satellites, and computer programs to observe and analyze the sun from different places on earth — mountaintops, for instance, or the North and South poles — or even from space (at least two Heliophysicists flew aboard the Space Shuttle). Your goal: understanding why the sun looks and behaves the way it does, and predicting what it will do in the future, which of course impacts life on earth since the sun sustains it.

Like other Scientists, you spend most days developing hypotheses, then designing, executing, and raising funds for research that tests them. You also may teach heliophysics, if you work at a university; write scholarly papers on solar science; and present your research findings at scientific conferences. Always, however, your eye is on the sun (not directly, of course, lest you burn your eyes!).