The Turbulent Sun

The Turbulent Sun is exactly the type of science book I love to read—full of excitement from an expert in the field who understands just how to enchant, inform, and entertain the curious non-expert. – Dava Sobel, New York Times bestselling author of The Elements of Marie Curie
If the sun were a mere hot ball of gas, it would be dull and boring, its behavior easy to understand and predict. What changes everything is the presence of its magnetic field. Leon Golub tells the captivating story of how we have come to understand the way in which convulsions within the sun generate magnetic phenomena that can both protect and harm the Earth.  Authoritative, comprehensive, and very well written, this is one of the best popular science books I have read in a long while. – Marcus Chown, author of A Crack in Everything
The Turbulent Sun is a masterful blend of storytelling, science, and science-history that delivers a clear understanding of our home: a vast bubble that defines our place in the cosmos, filling and protecting the solar system around us. In the grand tradition of science storytellers like John McPhee, Dava Sobel, or Phil Plait, Golub knits together personal anecdote, science breakthrough, and science insight to produce a fabric of gripping, informative, and accessible text. The work is exquisitely balanced and will appeal to the science-curious and to professional scientists alike. – Craig DeForest, Principal Investigator, NASA’s PUNCH Mission
From early efforts to solve the sun’s mysteries to the space-age exploration of the heliosphere, this book traces how scientists came to understand the star that sustains life on Earth. A rewarding read for anyone curious about the discoveries, measurements, and missions behind our modern view of the sun. – Sara Seager, author of The Smallest Lights in the Universe
An excellent, up-to-date read. Golub is a skilled raconteur, so we live the surprises, the joys, the amazements of discovery alongside the scientists. – Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Professor of Physics, University of Oxford
A delicious read that paints a passionate story of how curiosity across disparate disciplines has deepened our understanding of how the sun generates wind and its effects on our solar system. The Turbulent Sun shows that it takes a village of diverse voices to advance science, allowing us to better understand the implications of space weather for life here on Earth and elsewhere. Leon Golub further explores how the heliosphere itself has changed, inflating and compressing as the Sun travels through different environments in our galaxy. – Merav Opher, Professor of Astronomy, Boston University, and Director, NASA SHIELD DRIVE Science Center
A beautifully integrated account of how heliospheric science grew from scattered curiosity into a unified discipline—and a compelling reminder of how much the sun shapes everything from planetary atmospheres to the conditions for life itself. – Jonathan W. Cirtain, CEO, Axiom Space
A dazzling perspective on how humanity came to understand that we exist within a bubble called the heliosphere, which transports us through our galaxy. – Louise Harra, Director, World Radiation Center of the Physical Meteorological Observatory
A fascinating book. In a world where we are overloaded by news stories about global warming and trips to the Moon, we often overlook the importance of the Sun. Leon Golub masterfully shows us how the Sun controls our direct space environment, the heliosphere, which at once protects us from the galaxy’s cosmic rays and threatens modern life. – Brigitte Schmieder, Professor Emeritus, Paris Observatory
An elegant tour of our evolving understanding of our closest star, The Turbulent Sun chronicles our quest to map the vast bubble that surrounds us—from Voyager 1 to NASA’s PUNCH and IMAP missions—capturing the enduring joy of space discovery. – Helen Mason OBE, Professor of Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge

Leon Golub is a Smithsonian Institution Scientist Emeritus. He has led numerous NASA missions and is the coauthor of “The Sun and Nearest Star.”

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