Does anybody have good data on what radiation exists in space?
I have found sporadic information, such as on Wikipedia but I wonder whether there’s nicer, clear structured information on this topic?
So - there are two sources of radiation we think about. There’s radiation from our local bodies - mostly the Sun. The Sun radiates at least some across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, so the trivial answer to your question is “all radiation exists in space to some extent.” There’s also a general “cosmic radiation background” that is (we think) left over from the big bang. That radiation also spans the entire EM spectrum, but at a different distribution to what our Sun emits.
I’m guessing that the trivial answer of “all of it” isn’t what you want and it might be why you’re struggling to find the info you’re searching. Is there a more specific way to formulate your question?
I was more talking about the quantitative split in Particle Radiation/Electromagnetic Radiation.
Both things exist, certainly, but I’m not sure how I’d establish a common unit to describe a set of things that are mostly waves but with a few particles thrown in. It’d have to be some kind of total energy flux through a selected region of space for a given time, and it’d be super specific to both the region and the timeframe since a CME event at the wrong time would really skew your results… I guess it could be some kind of time-average? So the thing you’d need is a total annual average energy flux of both EM and particle radiation through a region of interest. Such a thing certainly could (and probably has) been measured, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it all combined. This is maybe a start? It at least has all the radiation information in one spot.
I’m not sure I understand the value proposition of having that kind of information if someone took the time to do it, but it’s a fun thing to think about.
thanks, the link is interesting.
The value proposition would be that it is important to understand the exact radiation pattern/schemes if we ever want to routinize spaceflight. In other words: effective solutions (to the problem of radiation) requires detailed knowledge of what the problem actually is, in other words, what kind of radiation are we talking about.
