Smithtown2008-Class2
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Cosmic Rays
Cosmic rays are high energy particles that flow into the solar system and impact the Earth’s atmosphere. They originate from extra solar sources within our own galaxy such as rotating neutron stars, supernovae and black holes. Cosmic rays are made up of protons, electrons and atomic nuclei. The atomic nuclei are stripped of the surrounding electrons as they pass through the galaxy. Cosmic rays are examples of matter from outside the solar system. A Solar Flare is an explosion in a star’s atmosphere releasing a great amount of energy. Because Solar Flares release energy into the atmosphere, they increase the cosmic ray count rate.
Solar Flares
What is a solar flare? A solar flare is an event that occurs when magnetic energy that has built up of the solar atmosphere of the sun is suddenly released.
Why would solar flares have an effect on cosmic ray count rate? This would have an effect because solar flares produce cosmic rays. So when there is a solar flare the cosmic ray count rate increases.
A solar flare did occur on April 28, of 2008 according to the space weather national archive. This lead to an increase in cosmic ray count rate.
Atmospheric Pressure
As can be seen through the graphs from the collected data, the pressure and cosmic ray flux (count rate) shows a direct linear relationship. As atmospheric pressure increases (nice weather), count rate will decrease, and as atmospheric pressure decreases (bad weather), count rate will increase. Since atmospheric pressure is constantly changing, if we remove the dependence on pressure, it is easier to examine whether or not a solar flare is present.
Results
The Solar Flare 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]]
| Date | Averaged data |
|---|---|
| April 19, 2008 | Media:SolarFlare-04-19.txt |
| April 20, 2008 | Media:SolarFlare-04-20.txt |
| April 21, 2008 | Media:SolarFlare-04-21.txt |
| April 22, 2008 | Media:solarflare-4-22.txt |
| April 23, 2008 | Media:SolarFlare-04-23.txt |
| April 24, 2008 | Media:SolarFlare-04-24.txt |
| April 25, 2008 | Media:SolarFlare-04-25.txt |
| April 26, 2008 | Media:SolarFlare-04-26.txt |
| April 27, 2008 | Media:CosmicRayz-4-27.txt |
| April 28, 2008 | Media:CosmicRay-04-28.txt |
| April 29, 2008 | Media:CosmicRay-4-29.txt |
| April 30, 2008 | Media:CosmicRay-04-30.txt |
| May 1, 2008 | Media:SolarFlare-05-01.txt |
| May 2, 2008 | Media:SolarFlare-05-02.txt |
| May 3, 2008 | Media:SolarFlare-05-03.txt |
| May 4, 2008 | Media:CosmicRays-05-04.txt |
| May 5, 2008 | Media:Solarflare05-05.txt |
| May 6, 2008 | Media:SolarFlare0506.txt |
| May 7, 2008 | Media:SolarFlare-05-07-08.txt |
| May 8, 2008 | Media:SolarFlare-5-8-2008.txt |
| May 9, 2008 | Media:SolarFlare-05-09-08.txt |
| May 10, 2008 | Media:Dowload_template_Cosmic_rays.txt |
Media:SolarFlare--4-19-08-4-25-08and5-1-08-5-10-08.txt
Media:Solarflares 4-26to5-1.txt
Conclusions
You can see the effects of the solar flare. Around April 30th through May 1st the count rate - trendline versus date and time graph shows a blip in which there is an increase in particles. Around the 28th of April the actual solar flare took place, showing that the particles (hydrogen atoms) from the solar flare took 2 days to reach Earth. This makes sense because mass moves slower than light particles. To know if there was a solar flare for sure, you would have to check temperature around the dates.
