"Living with a star: solar activity and space weather"
Professor Lyndsay Fletcher, University of Glasgow
Talk Description
Our nearest star, the Sun, provides us with the energy necessary for life on Earth. But it can also pose a threat, due to its magnetic field, which is constantly being regenerated in its interior, and expelled into space in violent explosions known as coronal mass ejections. In this talk I will give an overview of the Sun and its magnetic personality, illustrated by results from recent missions and telescopes, and including sunspots, active regions, solar flares and coronal mass ejections, and the impact of these on Earth.
Our Speaker
Lyndsay Fletcher did her undergraduate and PhD degrees at the University of Glasgow, and moved to the Netherlands and then the US to carry out postdoctoral research in solar physics. She returned to Glasgow in 2000, taking up a position as lecturer and has remained there since, now as Professor. Since 2019 she has also been an Adjunct Professor at the University of Oslo. She researches solar flares, using imaging and spectroscopic data. She has been Senior Secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society and President of the International Astronomical Union’s Commission on Solar Activity, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 2025 she was awarded the MBE in recognition of her service to solar physics and to Equality and Diversity in physics and Astronomy.
Zoom
Cardiff Astronomical Society is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: "Living with a star: solar activity and space weather" presented by Professor Lyndsay Fletcher, University of Glasgow
Time: Jun 25, 2026 19:15 Cardiff / Glasgow
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Meeting ID: 818 3471 9747
Passcode: 043852