Young, Charles Augustus (1834-1908), an American astronomer, did pioneer studies in the physics of the sun. During a total eclipse of the sun in Iowa in 1869, he made the first observation of the spectrum of the sun’s corona. At the 1870 eclipse, he observed the flash spectrum and proved the existence of the chromosphere, a region in the sun’s gaseous shell. Young also determined the rate of rotation of the sun on its axis. His book, The Sun, was published in 1881. Young was born in Hanover, New Hampshire, and studied at Dartmouth College. He taught, and directed the observatory at Princeton University from 1877 to 1905.
