American Scientist

To the Editors:

Richard Woo’s principle point that the coronal streamers dominated discussion of the solar wind, as described in his article “Revealing the True Solar Corona” (May–June 2010), is no doubt correct. However, the spherical nature of the solar corona was asserted and well demonstrated in a 1937 Astrophysical Journal article by Brian O’Brien and colleagues. This article also states that the prominence of the coronal rays is a “well-known property of the eye.”

Why did this article not guide later discussions of the solar wind? In the wealth of scientific publications today, only careful bibliographical research would find such an article. How many such gems lie forgotten in our libraries?

Malcolm P. Savedoff
University of Rochester