interstellar coronal mass ejections tagged posts

On Jan. 7, 2014, the Sun’s surface erupted with an unusually large explosion, called coronal mass ejection (CME), with NOAA releasing a significant false alarm geomagnetic storm at Earth. Credit: NASA

When the sun hurls a billion tons of high-energy particles and magnetic fields into space at speeds of >a million miles/ hour and the ‘space weather’ conditions are right, the resulting geomagnetic storm at Earth can wreak havoc on communication and navigation systems, electrical power grids, and pose radiation hazards to astronauts and airline passengers and crew.

University of New Hampshire’s Space Science Center (SSC) scientists are now adding some powerful tools to the predictive toolbox using data from NASA’s MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, Geo-chemistry, and Ranging, or MESSENGER,...