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The Ionosphere
The discovery of the ionosphere came together through the work of many people from different fields. In 1864 James Clerk Maxwell proposed a theory of how electromagnetic waves could be created by using an oscillating magnetic and electric field together. In 1901 Marconi used Maxwell's discovery to send radio waves across the Atlantic Ocean. In 1902 Oliver Heaviside and Arthur Kennelly heard of Marconi's interesting discovery and proposed that there was a conducting reflective layer that was bouncing these waves back to earth, the Ionosphere! |
The
ionosphere is broken down into the D, E and F regions. The breakdown is
based on what wavelength of solar radiation is absorbed in that region most
frequently. The D region is the lowest in altitude, though it absorbs the
most energetic radiation, hard x-rays. The D region doesn't have a definite
starting and stopping point, but includes the ionization that occurs below
about 90km.