Weathering heights

 

Connecting state and local government leaders

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory will study sun storms, which can cripple satellites, disable power grids and jam radio communications.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has a new job: space weatherman.

The agency's fledgling Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) will study sun storms and how they occur. Storms from the sun explosively release magnetic energy and affect space weather.

These storms, which send massive streams of charged particles for millions of miles across and outside the solar system, can cripple satellites, disable power grids and jam radio communications.

Radio links on Earth have been a critical safety tool since the earliest days of the technology. Before the federal government created the Federal Communications Commission in 1934, the Navy regulated radio matters because officials considered that the technology's main function would be helping save distressed mariners.

Nowadays, radio networks such as the Global Positioning System, which provides radiolocation services worldwide, form one of the latest safety-critical radio applications that solar storms can shut down.

The new observatory includes technology that NASA will use to issue warnings of approaching solar storms.

Those warning can help radio system operators prepare for pending outages. The warning can help satellite owners plan how to reorient their 'birds' by firing small control thrusters. The repositioned satellites can face their most durable, or solar flare resistant, components in the direction of the oncoming blast of solar energy so as to protect more vulnerable parts.

"Right now, we can make limited space weather predictions, but they are baby steps compared to our ability to forecast weather on Earth," said Dean Pesnell of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., project scientist for SDO.

"SDO's instruments are designed to work together to tell us more about how solar storms form, which will improve predictions of when they are about to happen," Pesnell said.

Solar flares, or explosions in the sun's atmosphere, can be devastating. The largest are equal to billions of one-megaton nuclear bombs. Solar magnetic energy can also blast billions of tons of plasma into space at millions of miles per hour as a coronal mass ejection (CME).

This violent solar activity often occurs near sunspots, dark regions on the sun caused by concentrated magnetic fields. Sunspots and stormy solar weather follow a cycle that repeats approximately every 11 years, from few sunspots and quiet conditions to many sunspots and active, and back again.

NASA plans to launch the observatory, a semi-autonomous spacecraft, in December into geosynchronous orbit with a dedicated ground station. The craft will have a continuous data downlink. The observatory will study the flows of plasma inside the sun and how these affect the sun's weather as well as what magnetic structures lead to flares and CMEs.

The observatory will use three instruments to study the sun's weather. The first is a Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI), which will help map plasma flows inside the sun and create a picture based on sound waves of the sun's interior, similar to an ultrasound scan. HMI also will measure the strength and direction of the magnetic fields emerging on the sun's surface. NASA plans to use this data to determine how magnetic fields move and concentrate in the sun, the cause of storms.

The Atmospheric Imaging Assembly will take pictures of the sun's atmosphere close to the surface where solar magnetic fields change shape and release energy. It will be used with HMI to link changes on the sun's surface to interior changes.

The Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment (EVE) will measure the sun's ultraviolet brightness, which constantly changes. Rapid changes in the sun's ultraviolet radiation can cause outages in radio communications and affect satellites orbiting the Earth. EVE will take measurements of the sun's brightness as often as every 10 seconds, providing space weather forecasters with warnings of communications and navigation outages.

The three technologies will be used together to forecast space weather and climate.

The observatory is the first mission to be launched for NASA's Living With a Star Program, designed to help federal agencies and humanity generally to understand the sun's influence on Earth and near-Earth space.

NEXT STORY: Dell Latitude, rugged attitude

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.