Wednesday, October 23, 2013

SOLAR FLARE

The top image shows the Sun, with the current sunspots visible from Earth.
The bottom image shows 2 graphs...on the left is from the GOES satellite and on the right is from my VLF receiver, here in Marysville, Washington.
The red arrows show the time of a strong solar flare from sunspot #1875.
The GOES graph shows the Xray intensity, while the VLF graph registers the signal strength of a VLF station in Hawaii. The signal from Hawaii is actually being "bounced" off Earth's  ionosphere and the Sun's activity affects the nature of the ionosphere. Hence, a strong flare will change it's density, causing the received signal to become stronger.

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