How do scientists study the sun without going blind?
Scientists can tell us how hot and heavy the sun is. They know just what it looks like close up and a lot about its storms, its sudden flare ups and enough other details to fill volumes. It is natural to wonder how they learned all this without going blind. Scientists, of course, are sensible people. They never risk harming their eyes by staring directly at the dazzling face of the sun. If someone told them to look at it through a telescope, they would be even more horrified. The eyepiece acts like a burning lens strong enough to blind a human eye. But scientists are curious people much too curious to be stopped by the brilliance of the sun. Instead of giving up, they got busy and invented dozens of different ways for studying the sun without actually staring it straight in the face. One of their tricks is very simple and if you have a small telescope you can try it. Fix a screen of white cardboard behind the eyepiece and point your telescope at the sun without peeping. Fiddle around w
