The Solar Activity Cycle

Understanding how the Sun changes though its 11-year sunspot cycle and how these changes affect the vast space around the Sun - the heliosphere - has been one of the principal objectives of space research since the advent of the space age. This book presents the evolution of the heliosphere through an entire solar activity cycle.

For nearly sixty years, radio observations have provided a unique insight into the physics of the active and quiescent solar atmosphere. Thanks to the variety of emission mechanisms and to the large altitude range available to observations, fundamental plasma parameters have been measured from the low chromosphere to the upper corona and interplanetary medium.