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On This Day In Space: Feb. 27, 1942: J.S. Hey discovers radio emissions from the sun

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On This Day In Space: Feb. 27, 1942: J.S. Hey discovers radio emissions from the sun_63fca9d4e4204.jpeg

On Feb. 27, 1942, a British physicist named James Stanley Hey accidentally found out that the sun emits radio waves. 

Hey was working for the Army Operational Research Group in the middle of World War II. His job was to find ways to stop the Germans from jamming British radars. 

Two major sunspot groups tracked across the surface of the sun between Dec. 2 and Dec. 27, 2022 in this mosaic created by Şenol Şanlı..   (Image credit: Şenol Şanlı)

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Hey received reports that anti-aircraft radars were experiencing severe noise jamming. In other words, foreign radio-frequency signals were interfering with the radars’ ability to operate. 

When he investigated the signals, he realized that they weren’t coming from Nazis — they were coming from the sun! More specifically, they were coming from an active sunspot. 

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