Predicting Solar Storms Before They Leave The Sun
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
When giant solar storms hit Earth, they trigger beautiful auroral displays high in Earth's atmosphere. There's a dark side to this solar activity, though. The "space weather" it sets off also threatens our technology. The potential for damage is why we need highly accurate predictions of just when these storms will impact our planet's magnetosphere.
To figure that out, scientists in England went to the source: specific places on the sun where these storms erupt. Those outbursts are called coronal mass ejections (CMEs). They're huge explosions of magnetically charged particles and gases from the sun. They travel through space and hit whatever is in their way, including planets.
When that cloud of charged particles hits our magnetic field, it sets off a chain reaction of events. Of course, it creates beautiful auroral displays-northern and southern lights that dance in the skies. But, they also slam into and can damage orbiting satellites, including all our telecommunications and navigation systems for planes, boats, and trains.
[...] The team found a very strong relationship between the critical height of the CME as it gets started and its true speed as it moves out. "This insight allows us to predict the CME's speed and, consequently, its arrival time on Earth, even before the CME has fully erupted," Ghandhi said.
Knowing the actual speed of the CME to a higher degree of accuracy will let solar physicists predict when it will hit Earth. That, in turn, will allow satellite operators, grid owners, space agencies, and others to prepare for the action and protect their assets.
Journal information: Space Weather
More information:D. H. Boteler, A 21st Century View of the March 1989 Magnetic Storm, Space Weather (2019). DOI: 10.1029/2019SW002278
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