Localised heliomagnetic field concentrations push away the Sun’s convection cells, revealing spots of the cooler photosphere below, called sunspots. Traces of iron in our Sun, produced by a previously exploded star, are concentrated in the strong magnetic fields of sunspots. Iron (Fe) plasma, more than anything else on the Sun, is what emits extreme UV radiation. Eight minutes later, this extreme UV radiation hits Earth’s ionosphere, significantly enhancing its ionisation.
Extreme UV from the Sun gets fully absorbed by Earth’s atmosphere. This and the fact that extreme UV mirrors are hard to build, render direct measurements of extreme UV flux impossible. Instead, proxies of extreme UV radiation are used, such as sunspot numbers and the 10.7 cm radio flux.
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