David R Williams

Background

About David R Williams

My expertise is as an astronomer, studying the fuzzy but explosive atmosphere of our Sun. I use, operate, and have helped design space missions that tell us about the Sun that we can't see from inside our own, protective atmosphere. I look at the Sun in ultraviolet light, where it's covered in rope-like filaments, tenuous bright magnetically-shaped loops and puzzlingly hot ionised gas (plasma). The techniques I use split the Sun's UV light into its individual colours to tell us what it's made of, how it moves and what the conditions are that produce violent explosions like flares and coronal mass ejections. I am one of four Instrument Operations Scientists working for the Solar Orbiter mission, launched in 2020, that is exploring the environment of the Solar System close to the star that creates it: our Sun. Solar Orbiter is designed to feel the effects of the Sun as close as the orbit of Mercury, where the "solar wind" is freshest and easiest to trace back to its sources at the Sun. I am also ESA's chief scientist for three other solar physics missions in which the Agency is involved: Hinode (operated since 2006 by JAXA); IRIS (operated since 2013 by NASA); and Solar-C (to be launched by JAXA in 2029).