X-Ray Emissions from Solar Flares and from Celestial Sources

One of the interesting questions in solar X-ray astronomy is the question as to whether the hard X-ray emission which occurs during major solar flares is a thermal or nonthermal phenomenon. The evidence for non-thermal emission has been based in large measure on a balloon-borne experiment by Peterson and Winckler, which constituted the first detection of high energy flare X-rays. In the Peterson-Winckler experiment, the incident solar X-rays were measured by both an ion chamber and a Geiger counter photometer, and from the ratio of responses, the hardness character of the incident X-rays was reduced. It was concluded that the observed result could have been explained in terms of the sudden non-thermal production of a group of electrons with energy of the order of 500 kilovolts.