 Saree may be beautiful from 93 million miles away. The Sun is actually a violently energetic system so complex that numerous scientists like Dr. Tom Duvall from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center are dedicating their careers to its study. Working at the Kitt Peak National Observatory outside Tucson, Arizona, Dr. Duvall and his colleagues use a variety of telescopes in their research. This McMath instrument on Kitt Peak is the largest solar telescope in the world. An 81-inch mirror on its roof tracks the Sun's daily passage, sending a beam down a shaft extending 300 feet below ground. The result is a unique high-resolution image of the Sun about two and a half feet in diameter. Dr. Duvall hopes to get at the causes of solar activity determining what's going on in the Sun's interior, his ultimate goal to predict some of the phenomena associated with solar activity that are troublesome to us here on Earth. Most of Dr. Duvall's work is done in this 81-foot-high solar vacuum telescope. Again, mirrors are used to reflect an image of the Sun down into the instrument's control room. Here a daily map of magnetic phenomena on the Sun's surface is produced. Nearly all forms of solar activity from sunspots to flares create magnetic fields. If these disturbances are strong enough, communications on Earth can be disrupted. There may even be a relationship between solar activity and Earthly temperatures. At NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, Richard Hoover, an astrophysicist, studies the Sun with X-ray telescopes. This mirror was part of an instrument used on Skylab to produce solar images. Today, Hoover and scientists from Stanford University are working with the new generation of X-ray telescopes. And they're producing phenomenally high-resolution images, revealing solar turbulence has never seen before. Launched in 1980, the 5,500-pound solar-maximum spacecraft continues to produce information about the Sun. Since being repaired by NASA astronauts, its instruments have functioned well. Clock reports the solar max is dead on the Sun. When the shuttle lives off in October 1990, it will carry in its cargo bay another spacecraft that will take an unprecedented look at the Sun. Developed by NASA and the European Space Agency, Ulysses will fly over the solar poles, regions of the Sun which may hold important clues about its nature. Ulysses' five-year journey of exploration, together with solar max and discoveries being made by NASA scientists around the country, will greatly enhance our understanding of the beast. Behind the Beauty.