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The First Solar Radio Burst Discovery

February 27, 1942Geomagnetic StormKp 9

What happened

British physicist James Stanley Hey, investigating what appeared to be German radar jamming, traced severe interference at anti-aircraft radar stations to a large sunspot group crossing the Sun. Wartime secrecy delayed publication until 1946, but the discovery marked the birth of solar radio astronomy — the first identification of the Sun as a source of intense radio emission.

Primary Scientific Record: Nature — J. S. Hey (1946), vol. 157, pp. 47–48 Track Live Equivalent Conditions on SpaceWeatherTracker →

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Year: 1942