Science Objectives

Goal: Measure the rotational speed of the sun.

How: Using Doppler Shifts on each side of the sun, use the measured difference in shifted wavelengths to compute the rotational speed. Because these Doppler Shifts are so small (smaller than we can resolve with our given $2000 budget), we are using a technique known as cross correlation. This takes two wave forms (one black body radiation curve from each side of the sun) and multiplies these waveforms together. The output of the cross correlation function is a waveform that measures the similarity of the waveforms. This output waveform correlates to the Doppler Shift, and can be used to infer the rotational speed of the sun.