Glossary

Weather satellites commonly carry radiometers, which measure radiation from snow, ice, clouds, and bodies of water. Spaceborne radars are used for Earth observations, bouncing radar waves off land and ocean surfaces to study sea-surface conditions, ice thickness, and land surface features. A wind scatterometer is a special type of radar designed to measure ocean surface winds indirectly by bouncing signals off the water and measuring them from various angles. Infrared (IR) detectors measure heat generated by Earth features in the IR band of the spectrum.

Photographic reconnaissance sensors in their simplest form are large telescope-camera systems used to view objects on Earth's surface. The bigger the lens, the smaller the object that can be detected. Camera-telescope systems now incorporate all sorts of sophisticated electronics to produce better images, but even these systems need cloudless skies, excellent lighting, and good color contrast between objects and their surroundings to detect objects the size of a basketball. Some of the satellites produce film images that must be returned to Earth, but a more convenient method is to record the image as a series of digital code numbers, then reconstruct the image from the electronic code using a computer at a ground station.

Besides affecting Earth's weather, solar activity gives rise to a dramatic visual phenomena in our atmosphere. The streams of charged particles from the Sun interact with Earth's own magnetic field like a generator to create current systems with electric potentials of as much as 100,000 volts. Charged electrons are energized by this process, sent along the magnetic field lines towards Earth's upper atmosphere, excite the gases present in the upper atmosphere, and cause them to emit light which we call the auroras. The auroras are the northern (aurora borealis) and southern (aurora Australis) lights.

1. The series of colored bands diffracted and arranged in the order of their respective wave lengths by the passage of white light through a prism or other diffracting medium and shading continuously from red (produced by the longest visible wave) to violet (produced by the shortest visible wave).

2. Any of various arrangements of colored bands or lines, together with invisible components at both ends of the spectrum, similarly formed by light from incandescent gases or other sources of radiant energy, which can be studied by a spectrograph.

3. In radio, the range of wave lengths of radio waves, from 3 centimeters to 30,000 meters, or of frequencies of radio waves, from 10 to 10,000,000 kilocycles. Also radio spectrum.

4. The entire range of radiant energies. See electromagnetic spectrum.

The source of the Sun's energy is the nuclear reactions that occur in its core. There, at temperatures of 15 million degrees Celsius (27 million degrees Fahrenheit) hydrogen atom nuclei, called protons, are fused and become helium atom nuclei. The energy produced through fusion at the core moves outward, first in the form of electromagnetic radiation called photons. Next, energy moves upward in photon heated solar gas--this type of energy transport is called convection. Convective motions within the solar interior generate magnetic fields that emerge at the surface as sunspots and loops of hot gas called prominences. Most solar energy finally escapes from a thin layer of the Sun's atmosphere called the photosphere--the part of the Sun observable to the naked eye.

The sun appears to have been active for 4.6 billion years and has enough fuel for another 5 billion years or so. At the end of its life, the Sun will start to fuse helium into heavier elements and begin to swell up, ultimately growing so large that it will swallow Earth. After a billion years as a 'red giant,' it will suddenly collapse into a 'white dwarf.' It may take a trillion years to cool off completely.