Testing the Accuracy of a Homemade Magnetometer in Tracking Solar Flares

Overview

Objectives/Goals Abstract I was led to this project because I have always loved heliophysics, and I have always loved researching the sun in general: I have always wondered about the solar wind, solar flares, Coronal Mass Ejections, and other phenomenon on the Sun. I began working on a magnetometer to see if I can record these phenomenon. My hypothesis was that my magnetometer could detect differences in the solar wind as fine as 0.1 keV, and detect 90% spikes that went over 25 keV. Methods/Materials I used two neodymium magnets, two mirrors, and a laser pointer for the basic components for my magnetometer. I wrote a program to track the laser and make a graph of how much it moved. I then let my magnetometer run for 12 hours every night, and have accumulated over 240 hours of results. Results My results were very surprising. When compared to NASA's data, my magnetometer could detect differences in the solar wind as fine as 0.5 keV, and it could detect 85% of the spikes in the solar wind that went over 25 keV, and also detected 65% of all spikes that went over 15 keV. Conclusions/Discussion I had a lot of fun doing this project. While my results show that my magnetometer should detect all differences over 15 keV, it couldn't detect a spike that went over 18 keV. If I were to do this project again, I might try using different magnets as the core, different types of coins as the control, and try to eliminate all different magnetic disturbances nearby.

Awards (1)

• Second Place

Competition history

• CSEF 2014 Earth & Planetary Sciences · Entry J0899

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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