The Sun is an awe-inspiring celestial object, a massive ball of hot gas over a million times bigger than Earth. Located at the center of our solar system, it shines brilliantly, providing us with the essential energy we need to thrive.

Deep within the Sun's core, nuclear fusion takes place, where hydrogen atoms combine to form helium, releasing an enormous amount of heat and light. This process creates the Sun's life-giving energy, which radiates outward into space.

Today, we have sophisticated space telescopes like the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). These telescopes orbit above Earth's atmosphere, capturing stunning images of the Sun's dynamic surface and its intricate dance of magnetic fields.

Sunspots are cooler areas on the Sun's surface caused by powerful magnetic fields. They appear as dark spots, and their activity varies in cycles. Solar flares, on the other hand, are explosive events releasing vast amounts of energy. Although they are millions of miles away, their effects can impact us on Earth.

The Sun emits a constant stream of charged particles known as the solar wind. When solar storms and bursts of energy interact with Earth's magnetic field, they create mesmerizing auroras in the polar regions. However, these phenomena can also disrupt satellites and power grids, making understanding space weather crucial.

Leading the ground-based observations are solar telescopes like the Dunn Solar Telescope, Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST), the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope (SST), and the upcoming 4.2 m European Solar Telescope (EST). Equipped with adaptive optics and high-resolution spectrographs, they capture intricate details of the Sun's surface, magnetic fields, and evolving sunspot regions. DKIST's 4-meter aperture and sophisticated instruments are set to revolutionize our understanding of the Sun's outer layers, revealing the secrets of its atmosphere.

Instruments like the Global Oscillation Network Group (GONG) and Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) monitor the Sun's oscillations, helping to study its interior and provide insight into solar structure and dynamics.

Launched jointly by ESA and NASA in 1995, SOHO has been an iconic solar mission. Equipped with multiple instruments, including the Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT), the Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI), and the Solar Ultraviolet Measurement of Emitted Radiation (SUMER), SOHO has revolutionized our understanding of the Sun. It has provided continuous observations of the Sun's corona, inner layers, and solar wind, playing a crucial role in space weather prediction.

Launched in 2010, SDO continuously observes the Sun in multiple wavelengths, including ultraviolet and extreme ultraviolet. It captures high-definition images and provides valuable data on solar flares, coronal loops, and magnetic field interactions.

Launched in 2020, Solar Orbiter is a collaboration between ESA and NASA, designed to study the Sun's polar regions. It will get as close as 42 million kilometers to the Sun, allowing for unprecedented observations of the solar poles and their impact on solar activity.

MUSE is an upcoming NASA MID EXplorer (MIDEX) mission that will exploit revolutionary imaging spectroscopy to accomplish breakthrough physics of the solar corona and space weather. MUSE will continuously obtain EUV spectra and images with the highest resolution in space (~0.3 arcsec) and time (~1--4 s) ever achieved for the transition region and the corona, using an innovative 37-slit  grating spectrograph and a large context field-of-view (of 170 x 170 arcsec^2) using a context imager. It is scheduled for launch in late 2026/early 2027.

The PUNCH mission, led by NASA, is designed to provide a comprehensive view of the Sun's outer atmosphere, the corona, and its extended magnetic field, known as the heliosphere. PUNCH consists of a constellation of four small satellites stationed in Earth's orbit. These satellites will carry coronagraphs, specialized instruments that will block the bright solar disk, allowing scientists to study the faint outer corona and observe phenomena like coronal mass ejections (CMEs) with unprecedented detail. By observing CMEs and solar wind interactions with the heliosphere, PUNCH will significantly improve our ability to predict space weather and its potential impacts on Earth and space-based technologies.