Extend this unit's in-situ wind-speed prediction and coronagraph geometry tools to new scenarios.
If a future Parker Solar Probe extended mission achieved a perihelion of 6 R_sun (closer than the real 9.86 R_sun), compute the predicted Parker-wind speed at that distance and compare it to the predicted speed at the real perihelion computed in the lab.
If the Sun oscillates in approximately 10 million individually distinguishable p-mode oscillation patterns (a standard order-of-magnitude figure), and a single mode's frequency can be measured to a precision of about 1 part in 10^5, discuss (without needing new derivations) why this enormous number of precisely measured modes provides much stronger constraints on interior structure than the single core-temperature estimate used in Lecture 01.
Recompute the unusable field-of-view fraction from the lab if the occulting disk instead needs to block out to 2.0 solar radii (rather than 1.5), with the same 6-solar-radius total field of view. State whether this increases or decreases the coronagraph's useful observing fraction.
Compute the ratio of PSP's record heliocentric speed (191 km/s) to Earth's own orbital speed around the Sun (approximately 29.8 km/s), and state how many times faster PSP was moving at its perihelion than Earth moves in its orbit.
Submit a complete derivation with equations, units, labeled quantities, and a short narrative interpretation for each problem. Show every step; a correct final number without a visible derivation receives partial credit at most, and quoting a lecture number without adapting it to this problem's specific inputs receives no credit for that step.
OpenStax Astronomy 2e (local extracted reference copy: references/openstax-astronomy-2e-extracted.txt) covers the Sun in Chapter 15 ("The Sun: A Garden-Variety Star"): 15.1 The Structure and Composition of the Sun, 15.2 The Solar Cycle, and 15.3 Solar Activity above the Photosphere. Chapter 15’s section numbering was cross-checked directly against its own embedded figure numbering this session (Figures 15.1 through 15.24 all appear under their matching section headers with no offset), so this citation is verified against the local extracted text rather than extrapolated by analogy from a prior course. OpenStax’s treatment throughout Chapter 15 is descriptive and qualitative; nearly every quantitative derivation in this course (the hydrostatic solar-atmosphere/scale-height argument, the sunspot magnetic-pressure balance, the Parker solar-wind critical-point argument and its numerical transonic solution, flare free-energy budgets, the Chapman-Ferraro magnetopause standoff distance, and the Dessler-Parker-Sckopke ring-current/Dst relation) goes well beyond OpenStax Astronomy 2e’s introductory level; each lecture states explicitly where this course extends beyond the assigned reading.
materials/ASTR370/data/ where referenced above.