Let's Measure the Diameter of the Sun!

You can measure the diameter of the sun from your own backyard! You'll just need a few simple tools and a little clever math. A really long tape measure is NOT required!

As always, NEVER look directly at the sun!!!

As an added challenge, can you prove that the formula used to determine the diameter of the sun is, in fact, correct?

[JeffersonLab]

Just to be clear, the Earth isn't flat.

[JeffersonLab]

Sorry, I misunderstood the 'live presentations' portion of your comment. Thought you were referring to the Science Series lectures and not the demo shows given to visiting student groups. Pretty much everything that can be harvested from that particular filming has been posted. However, if another one gets filmed (especially if it's in HD), more might appear.

[JeffersonLab]

More videos are planned. Unfortunately, timing hasn't been on our side.

[JeffersonLab]

Did it some time ago. See "Dry Ice vs. Liquid Nitrogen!"

[NeatNit]

Really cool video ;) but if we're basically googling the distance from the sun, wouldn't it be easier to just google its diameter?

By the way, the reason I subscribed to this channel is the live presentations you have uploaded a long time ago, these smaller videos are nice but it would be really cool if you uploaded more of those :)

[muskangarg.]

Very nice..👍🏻👍🏻 I liked this process...woww🤗

[JeffersonLab]

The sun's surface temperature is about 5800 K. And, yes.

[WisdomOver]

Forget the sun!! Such a cute lil baby!!! He's adorable Joanna!!! Great job!!!

And don't mind Steve...pregnant women are beautiful!! Plus, I can tell that he adores you otherwise he wouldn't say it... ;o)

[Ratchet]

omg thats adorable!
cool vid :)
we missed you guys! :)

[JeffersonLab]

Steve travelled to the University of Kentucky to observe the transit of Venus in the hopes of finding weather that was better than was predicted for Virginia. The photos of the transit were taken there.

[JeffersonLab]

Sure, but it had to be measured somehow. This is a primitive way of doing it. It hinges on knowing how far away the sun is and measuring -that- was one of astronomy's major achievements. Read a bit about the expeditions to observe the transits of Venus. All that effort was done to pin down the distance to the sun. It was basically the Manhattan Project of the time.

We only have a few live lectures a year. The next one is on April 30. The video will follow shortly afterwards

[GordonMcDonough]

The Bradbury Science Museum is pleased as punch to see Joanna back and to catch a glimpse of her son!

[abbymichellexx]

Congrats Joanna! He's so cute!!

[JeffersonLab]

We have a lot of liquid nitrogen, but not -that- much...

[MattMachine]

All right! Now let's go to it! I want to be the first person to stand on the surface of the Sun!

[JeffersonLab]

*He's

The title of the video is "Let's Measure the Diameter of the Sun!" There's a pun in play here...

[EjsReviews]

Could you use this technique to make other astronomical measurements?

[IstasPumaNevada]

Congrats on the son, thanks for using metric, and neat simple experiment. Reminded me of using this projector to watch a partial eclipse last year.

[ashley.dodson]

How hot is the sun? Don't you usually measure it in Kelvin?

[Silverdew]

Then what am I supposed to do with my really large tape measure?