Number 242 (Story #3), September 28, 1995 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein WHERE DOES THE SOLAR CORONA GET ITS ENERGY? Scientists have long been puzzled by the fact that the corona is much hotter than the sun's visible surface. Astronomers viewing new observations of individual coronal loops recorded with the orbiting Yokhoh x-ray telescope deduce that the rate of loop heating scales inversely with the square of the loop length. Establishing this scaling law sets the stage for the next step in arriving at an understanding of coronal heating. This will be the direct measurement of the strengths of arching magnetic fields which rise out of the sun and twist the coronal loops into their barber's pole shapes. (James Klimchuk and Lisa Porter, Nature, 14 Sept.)