Menzel to Aid Solar Studies At Michigan

New estimates of the nature of the sun's composition will be the goal of a two-year research program under Naval contract by a group of scientists including Professor Donald H. Menzel, associate director for Solar Research.

The four-man group of Michigan, Harvard, and Princeton scientists headed by Leo Goldberg of the University of Michigan will interpret data gathered by cameras and instruments in V-2 rockets.

Professor Menzel hopes that the Office of Naval Research program will "lead to an improved understanding of the sun, its chemical composition and the way in which solar radiation reacts on the earth."

Suspect Ultra-Violet Radiation

"It is known that the temperature of the radiation from the surface of the sun is approximately 6,000 degrees centigrade," Menzel and Goldberg pointed out, "But the condition of atoms in the sun's outer atmosphere indicates that temperatures of over 1,000,000 degrees centigrade prevail at some distance from the sun. This and other indirect evidence suggest that there is an unexpectedly large quantity of ultra-violet radiation from the sun's surface.

"The cameras and other instruments in V-2 rockets are making it possible to study this ultra-violet sunlight and may reveal information which will entirely change present ideas as to the physical and chemical composition of the solar body."