Michael Erlewine Posted March 29 Share Posted March 29 (edited) If Solar Flares are classed A, B, C, M X, what would be the class of normal sunlight. Looking at the graph, I suppose normal sunlight would be like C.0 Class. Is this true? Another question: When there is almost no activity and the graph drops down to Class B or Class A, what is going on to cause this? Using the familiar SolarHam.com display with some callouts. Edited March 29 by Michael Erlewine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcel de Bont Posted March 30 Share Posted March 30 Solar flares are the prime source of X-rays and just sunlight itself consist of very very little X-rays if I remember correctly, I do not think they could even be measured by satellites as active regions/solar activity would drown out X-rays from pure sunlight and the corona at all times. Someone else might have a better answer but I think this is the case. The drops to the B or even A class are caused by the Earth coming in between the Sun and the satellite during the equinoxes so once a day you will have a drop in the data as there is no Sun visible for the satellite. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drax Spacex Posted March 30 Share Posted March 30 There will always be some X-Ray Flux even with no flares or active regions on the visible disk - which on average depends on where we are in the solar cycle. The table found here provides the conversion between flare class and X-Ray Flux in W/m^2 https://www.spaceweatherlive.com/en/help/what-are-solar-flares.html And here's related topic - two years into Solar Cycle 25 - on a day when the Sun was very quiet. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
helios Posted March 31 Share Posted March 31 On 3/29/2023 at 2:42 PM, Michael Erlewine said: If Solar Flares are classed A, B, C, M X, what would be the class of normal sunlight. Maybe it's a misunderstanding, but for completeness: Those are flares in the x-ray spectrum. They have little to nothing to do with what we perceive as "sunlight" in the visible spectrum. During solar minimum, the x-ray background can go below A1-level. Which is a 100 times smaller flux than the current C1-level. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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