Smithtown2008-Class1
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Cosmic Ray Group
Cosmic Rays were discovered in 1912 by Victor Hess. Cosmic Rays are high energy charged particles that enter into Earth's atmosphere from outer space. They travel close to the speed of light, and bombard the Earth from all directions. There are three different kind of Cosmic Rays--Galactic Cosmic Rays(which come from outside the solar system), Anomalous Cosmic Rays (which come from the interstellar space at the edge of the heliopause), and Solar Energetic Particles (which are associated with solar flares and other energetic solar events). Cosmic Rays are believed to be derived from supernova explosions, which occur approximately once every 50 years in our Galaxy. It is in fact the expanding clouds of gas and magnetic field produced by the explosion that accelerate the cosmic rays and allow them to gain energy. When the energy and speed of the cosmic ray become too great for the remnants of the explosion to contain, the cosmic ray is propelled into the galaxy. The Sun is another source of cosmic ray nuclei and electrons. They too are accelerated by shock waves and magnetic energy. These cosmic rays are released during solar flairs. Such solar particles are included in the cosmic ray count. The occurrence of solar flairs increases the number of cosmic rays entering our atmosphere.
References: http://www.srl.caltech.edu/personnel/dick/cos_encyc.html http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/ http://www2.slac.stanford.edu/vvc/cosmic_rays.html
Effects of Atmospheric Pressure
Atmospheric pressure has a significant impact on the count rate of cosmic rays. The atomspheric pressure is inversely proportional to the count rate - meaning as pressure increases the amount of cosmic rays detected decreases. Therefore, it is important to note the atmoshperic pressure at the time of the data collection, so that its influence can be accounted for when identifying solar flares.
Reference - [1]
Solar Flare
What is a solar flare? A solar flare is a tremendous explosion on the surface of the sun. It is a rapid and intense variation in brightness.
What causes a solar flare? The sun’s strong magnetic energy causes solar flares. It occurs when magnetic energy that has built up in the solar atmosphere is suddenly released.
What happens during a solar flare? In just a few minutes, material is heated to millions of degrees and massive amounts of energy are released.
Where do solar flares occur? Solar flares usually occur around sun spots. They occur along the dividing lines between areas of oppositely directed magnetic fields.
When was the solar flare at the end of April 2008? The solar flare occurred on April 26, 2008. What was significant about this solar flare was that it did not occur around a sunspot the way most solar flares do. [4]
Results
The Cosmic Ray group calculated average cosmic ray count rates and compiled them with averaged weather information.
- Once compiled, the data was uploaded to the files that follow.
- Compiled files (files of lots of days together) are listed at the bottom; 1 file for days close to the solar flare, and 1 file for days not close to the solar flare.
- In edit mode, files should be input in the format [[Media:CosmicRay-mm-dd.txt]]
Conclusions
As seen from our data, the solar flare occurred roughly around April 26. Now, a spike in cosmic rays does not occur until approximately April 30. That is explainable as the material must be projected 93 million miles from the sun, at less than light speeds. Seeing as how light, going at about 186,000 miles per second, makes it to Earth in 8 minutes, 4 days is a reasonable amount of time.
Also, the 4 day gap allows us to figure the strength of this solar flare. This one comes in at about a strength of M using the scale of solar flare measurement. This is strong compared to the other units of measurement, but not the largest recorded by far. A solar flare occurring in November of 2004 reached an unheard of strength of 28X
In conclusion, we used data regarding the count rate to determine the approximate time of a solar flare pretty accurately. Yay us.
