SWM wrote:wastedfly wrote:So? You would know they were there. It is not like the ocean with cross chop caused by changing wind direction creating the impossibility of wave analysis. You see this big ol' yellow ball in the sky is at a near constant...
Of course implementing such a sensor network, would be, uh, um, well, erm... Power of plot?
The "big ol' yellow ball in the sky" is at a near constant in illumination, but not a true constant. And the magnetic field is far from constant. On the largest scale, the magnetic field of the sun reverses polarity every 22 years! Solar rotation, solar flares, coronal holes, coronal mass ejections, the magnetic fields of the planets, and interaction with the interstellar magnetic field cause a constantly changing and chaotic structure in the solar wind. There are currents and eddies, flows and turbulence. An entire field called space weather has grown up analyzing and tracking the changing magnetic and plasma flux environment in near-Earth space.
And sunspots...don't forget sunspots.