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Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics

First light!

June 1, 2016

MinXSS-1 First Light 2Here’s what the very first, very rough, solar soft x-ray spectrum from MinXSS looks like. The GOES XRS measurement is the accepted standard for defining flare class and background emission. There were no flares when this first spectrum was taken, so the GOES XRS refers to the background x-ray emission. A level of B1.5 is exceptionally low — the sun is really quiet right now. The large peak at low energies (longer wavelength) is likely just noise due to our onboard radio beacon. We’re still in the commissioning phase of the mission and will be turning that beacon off later, but we wanted to share this first result!

ThisĀ composite of spectra was taken on 2016 May 27 starting atĀ 10:58:42 UT.