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It is measured facing (pointing at / parallel to) the incoming sunlight (i.e. the flux through a surface perpendicular to the incoming sunlight; other angles would not be TSI and be reduced by the dot product). [3] The solar constant is a conventional measure of mean TSI at a distance of one astronomical unit (AU).
The solar constant includes radiation over the entire electromagnetic spectrum. It is measured by satellite as being 1.361 kilo watts per square meter (kW/m 2) at solar minimum (the time in the 11-year solar cycle when the number of sunspots is minimal) and approximately 0.1% greater (roughly 1.362 kW/m 2) at solar maximum. [1]
The solar flux unit (sfu) is a convenient measure of spectral flux density often used in solar radio observations, such as the F10.7 solar activity index: [1]. 1 sfu = 10 4 Jy = 10 −22 W⋅m −2 ⋅Hz −1 = 10 −19 erg⋅s −1 ⋅cm −2 ⋅Hz −1.
The relative spectral flux density is also useful if we wish to compare a source's flux density at one wavelength with the same source's flux density at another wavelength; for example, if we wish to demonstrate how the Sun's spectrum peaks in the visible part of the EM spectrum, a graph of the Sun's relative spectral flux density will suffice.
Solar radiation pressure on objects near the Earth may be calculated using the Sun's irradiance at 1 AU, known as the solar constant, or G SC, whose value is set at 1361 W/m 2 as of 2011. [17] All stars have a spectral energy distribution that depends on their surface temperature. The distribution is approximately that of black-body radiation.
W⋅sr −1 ⋅m −3: M⋅L −1 ⋅T −3: Irradiance Flux density: E e [nb 2] watt per square metre W/m 2: M⋅T −3: Radiant flux received by a surface per unit area. This is sometimes also confusingly called "intensity". Spectral irradiance Spectral flux density: E e,ν [nb 3] watt per square metre per hertz W⋅m −2 ⋅Hz −1: M⋅T −2
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The langley (Ly) is a unit of heat transmission, especially used to express the rate of solar radiation (or insolation) received by the earth. The unit was proposed by Franz Linke in 1942 [ 1 ] and named after Samuel Langley (1834–1906) in 1947.