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Diagram showing displacement of the Sun's image at sunrise and sunset Comparison of inferior and superior mirages due to differing air refractive indices, n. Atmospheric refraction is the deviation of light or other electromagnetic wave from a straight line as it passes through the atmosphere due to the variation in air density as a function of height. [1]
The optical atmospheric window is the optical portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that passes through the Earth's atmosphere, excluding its infrared part; [10] although, as mentioned before, the optical spectrum also includes the IR spectrum and thus the optical window could include the infrared window (8 – 14 μm), the latter is ...
A radio wave can be reflected in the solar atmosphere when it encounters a region of particularly high density compared to where it was produced, and such reflections can occur many times before a radio wave escapes the atmosphere. This process of many successive reflections is called scattering, and it has many important consequences. [47]
The spectrum of the Sun's solar radiation can be compared to that of a black body [11] [12] with a temperature of about 5,800 K [13] (see graph). The Sun emits EM radiation across most of the electromagnetic spectrum.
The irradiance above the atmosphere also varies with time of year (because the distance to the Sun varies), although this effect is generally less significant compared to the effect of losses on DNI. Diffuse horizontal irradiance (DHI) , or diffuse sky radiation is the radiation at the Earth's surface from light scattered by the atmosphere.
The windows are themselves dependent upon clouds, water vapor, trace greenhouse gases, and other components of the atmosphere. [ 8 ] Out of an average 340 watts per square meter (W/m 2 ) of solar irradiance at the top of the atmosphere, about 200 W/m 2 reaches the surface via windows, mostly the optical and infrared.
The amount of penetration of UV relative to altitude in Earth's ozone. Next in frequency comes ultraviolet (UV). In frequency (and thus energy), UV rays sit between the violet end of the visible spectrum and the X-ray range. The UV wavelength spectrum ranges from 399 nm to 10 nm and is divided into 3 sections: UVA, UVB, and UVC.
Because the Earth's atmosphere absorbs much of the electromagnetic radiation emitted by the Sun with wavelengths shorter than 300 nm, space-based telescopes allowed for the observation of solar flares in previously unobserved high-energy spectral lines. Since the 1970s, the GOES series of satellites have been continuously observing the Sun in ...