I am working with Dr. Andrés Muñoz-Jaramillo to study the solar cycle. The Sun follows a roughly 22-year cycle of high and low activity. This activity is driven mainly by the magnetic field buried in the Sun, which erupts through the surface in what are called active regions. I will work to assemble a database of active regions in the Sun using magnetograms taken by the MDI instrument on board the SOHO satellite. This database will track active regions over more than a decade of daily MDI observations, enabling an unprecedented ability to study their properties over time with the changes in the solar cycle.
