Sunlight components

[NileQueen]

What would you say are the components of sunlight hitting the earth? Can they be quantified and measured? What are the magnetic aspects of such particles?

[thed]

Originally posted by NileQueen
What would you say are the components of sunlight hitting the earth?

Light plus lower and higher frequencies of the EM spectrum. We get all of them but the ozone layer and atmosphere filters out most.

Can they be quantified and measured?

It's called <a href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectroscopy">Spectroscopy</a>

What are the magnetic aspects of such particles?

What is a 'magnetic aspect' in this context? To me an 'aspect' is about the angle or position of observation.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=aspect (see entries under 'looking at' and 'phase')

[NileQueen]

Thanks thed,

I was thinking about beryllium for one thing...I guess I could google on that & find out the connexion to the sunlight.

Regarding magnetism, solar storms disrupt the magnetic field of the earth. Is there a relationship between such events and luminosity levels...erratic thoughts no doubt..

[eburacum45]

Solar storms don't affect the amount of light that reaches the surface of the Earth during the day, as even the biggest solar flare is very dim compared to the main body of the sun; the photographs that are published showing huge flares are filtered to cut out practically all the sun's brightness.
So during the day solar storms would be imperceptible to human senses.

At night however...
The protons from the sun that reach the Earth during a solar storm are captured by the Earth's magnetic field, and channelled down to form an aurora; as the storm increases this aurora moves south, until even I can see it sometimes.
Look for the blue curtains, and red and green glowing patches in the sky at night when there is a solar storm; it is beautiful.

(beryllium?)
_________________
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http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html

[thed]

Originally posted by NileQueen
I was thinking about beryllium for one thing...I guess I could google on that & find out the connexion to the sunlight.


You've got me on the Beryllium thing? The Sun is approximately 75% Hydrogen, 25% Helium and 1% everything else by mass. There are Beryllium atoms in the Sun their spectra present, but that's all. Plus you get Be as a side product of Helium fusion, IIRC. It's not much though.

Some stars are labelled High-Metallicity as they have abnormally large amounts of heavy elements, usually only a few percent more though.

To be honest, I'm not at all sure what you are getting at.

[NileQueen]

thed: To be honest, I'm not at all sure what you are getting at.

Well, thed, allow me to "enlighten" you. ;)

http://www.discover.com/science_news/features/gthere.html?article=feat_suicide.html

Gavin Lambert, at the Baker Heart Institute, and his team, after a 10 year study, have found a correlation between strong sunlight and suicide in susceptible people. It would appear that suicides are highest in late spring/summer, and that is in the northern hemisphere as well as the southern hemisphere.

I am primarily interested in the alleged "ice ages" and paleoclimatology, and so the climate side of this issue intrigued me.

In geology, rocks can be dated using the Beryllium 10 method. Sure there may not be much beryllium in one year, but in 60,000 years it could be measurable, and useful to use that millenial beryllium clock.
"Beryllium 10 is useful for studying the geology from hundreds of thousands of years ago mainly because it has a half-life of about one and a half million years. In addition, there are two key factors that have affected beryllium 10 production over the last 200,000 years: the earth's magnetic field and the sun's magnetic activity. When there are high-intensity solar magnetic storms, more charged particles are interacting with cosmic rays, and less beryllium 10 is produced. Likewise, the earth's magnetic field changes the flux of cosmic rays into and out of the atmosphere"
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Radiocarbon_dating

"Particles showering the Earth could tell geologists how long particular rocks have been on the surface."

http://www.polar.org/antsun/Sun010503/rocks-t.html

So I guess I'm wondering if any of these particles is responsible for the human reaction, rather than just the sunlight itself.

eburacum45

Thanks for your reply. Is that a Klingon name? :)

Look for the blue curtains, and red and green glowing patches in the sky at night when there is a solar storm; it is beautiful.

I think I am too far south to see such an ethereal light show. Latitude ~38 N