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    space weather tagged posts

    Breakthrough method for Predicting Solar Storms

    August 1, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Image of corona from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory showing features created by magnetic fields. Image credit: NASA
    Image of corona from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory showing features created by magnetic fields. Image credit: NASA

    Extensive power outages and satellite blackouts that affect air travel and the internet are some of the potential consequences of massive solar storms. These storms are believed to be caused by the release of enormous amounts of stored magnetic energy due to changes in the magnetic field of the sun’s outer atmosphere — something that until now has eluded scientists’ direct measurement. Researchers believe this recent discovery could lead to better “space weather” forecasts in the future.

    “We are becoming increasingly dependent on space-based systems that are sensitive to space weather...

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    Newest Solar Telescope produces First Images

    February 1, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Cell-like structures on the surface of the sun
    The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope has produced the highest resolution image of the sun’s surface ever taken. In this picture, taken at 789 nanometers (nm), we can see features as small as 30km (18 miles) in size for the first time ever. The image shows a pattern of turbulent, “boiling” gas that covers the entire sun. The cell-like structures — each about the size of Texas — are the signature of violent motions that transport heat from the inside of the sun to its surface. Hot solar material (plasma) rises in the bright centers of “cells,” cools off and then sinks below the surface in dark lanes in a process known as convection. In these dark lanes we can also see the tiny, bright markers of magnetic fields...
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    New Model Accurately Predicts Harmful Space Weather

    April 13, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    An artist’s rendering of the Van Allen radiation belts surrounding Earth

    An artist’s rendering of the Van Allen radiation belts surrounding Earth. The purple, concentric shells represent the inner and outer belts. They completely encircle Earth, but have been cut away in this image to show detail.CREDIT: NASA’s Conceptual Image Lab/Walt Feimer

    Predicting ‘killer’ electrons in the Earth’s outer radiation belt protects spacecraft. A new, first-of-its-kind space weather model reliably predicts space storms of high-energy particles that are harmful to many satellites and spacecraft orbiting in the Earth’s outer radiation belt...

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    Space Weather events linked to Human Activity

    May 18, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Human activities have been changing near-Earth space and weather. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Genna Duberstein

    Human activities have been changing near-Earth space and weather. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Genna Duberstein

    Our Cold War history is now offering scientists a chance to better understand the complex space system that surrounds us. Space weather – which can include changes in Earth’s magnetic environment – are usually triggered by the sun’s activity, but recently declassified data on high-altitude nuclear explosion tests have provided a new look at the mechanisms that set off perturbations in that magnetic system. Such information can help support NASA’s efforts to protect satellites and astronauts from the natural radiation inherent in space.

    From 1958 to 1962, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. ran high-altitude tests with exotic code names like Starfish, Argus and Teak...

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