Magnetic field 'magnetic field' is used to describe as well as or in place of . There are many alternative names for both (see sidebar). In SI units, is measured in teslas (symbol: T) and correspondingly (magnetic flux) is measured in webers (symbol: Wb) so that a flux density of 1 Wb/m is 1 tesla. The SI unit of tesla is equivalent to (newton·second)/(coulomb·metre). In Gaussian-cgs units, is measured in gauss (symbol: G). (The conversion is 1 T = 10000 G.) One nanotesla is equivalent to 1 gamma (symbol: γ). The -field is measured in amperes per metre (A/m) in SI units,
Spectral flux density the investigator is interested only in a specific direction, for example the vertical direction referred to a point in a planetary or stellar atmosphere, because the atmosphere there is considered to be the same in every horizontal direction, so that only the vertical component of the flux is of interest. Then the horizontal components of flux are considered to cancel each other by symmetry, leaving only the vertical component of the flux as non-zero. In this case some astrophysicists think in terms of the astrophysical flux (density), which they define as the vertical component of the flux (of the above