The research covers solar magnetic activity and space environment. It aims at finding the answers to the questions: how does solar magnetic field revive itself without perishing? What roles does magnetic field play in the atmosphere of the Sun? How does magnetic explosion occur on the Sun? How does solar magnetic explosion affect the environment of the near-Earth space? How does solar magnetic activity influence Earth’s climate and human life?

The research is carried out by analyzing the data coming from space missions and ground-based observations, Space data are freely available from the archive of the space missions lead by USA, ESA and Japan. The more important source of data is our own observations done at the Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBS) of NJIT (New Jersey Institute of Technology). The Korea consortium consisting of the SNU (Seoul National University) solar group and the KASI (Korea Astronomy and Space science Institute) solar and space weather group, established an MOU with the BBSO/NJIT which guarantees 15 days of full-day observations per year. The SNU group lead the Korea consortium to contribute the FISS (Fast Imaging Solar Spectrograph) to the 1.6 meter telescope of this observatory.

Prof. Jongchul Chae has done research on a variety of magnetic activities in the solar atmosphere. His current research is concentrated on the study of magnetic activities in the solar chromosphere based on the new observations done with the FISS.

[Homepage] https://astro.snu.ac.kr/~chae/