The second giant sunspot detected in less than a week may leave air navigation systems and satellite communications vulnerable to disruptions for a longer time than expected. The aurora borealis is expected to be breathtaking at both poles
29/10/2003
The second giant sunspot detected in less than a week may leave air navigation systems and satellite communications vulnerable to disruptions for a longer time than expected. The aurora borealis is expected to be breathtaking at both poles.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) first warned about it on October 22. She said that unusual solar activity, which is associated with the appearance of a huge sunspot, may cause increased geomagnetic disturbances and blockages in various radio frequencies days later.
The sunspot was ten times larger than Earth, about ten times the size of normal, according to Larry Coombs, a space weather forecaster at NOAA's Space Environment Center in Boulder, Colorado.
But since then another sunspot of the same size appeared and began to bombard the Earth. Rotating them out of range of impact on Earth and stopping the disruptions may take a few more days, Combs says.
not in season
Giant sunspots are not uncommon, but they usually occur at the peak of the sunspot season, which has an 11-year cycle. The last peak was in 2000, so the appearance of the giant sunspots is unusual. Combs says their appearance now is likened to the appearance of hurricanes not in hurricane season. The appearance of two may be unprecedented.
Such raging solar activity can produce massive bursts of electromagnetic radiation in a wide range of frequencies. The frequencies that have the greatest impact on Earth are X-ray frequencies, which can cause chaos in radio-based communications.
In addition, large sunspots can also cause huge eruptions of the solar surface, known as coronal mass ejections (CME). When such an ejection occurs, billions of tons of plasma are thrown into space, sometimes in the direction of Earth, says Louise Hera, head of the solar physics department at the Space Science Laboratory in Surrey, England. Two such incidents took place on Sunday.
If the direction of the magnetic field of these eruptions is opposite to the direction of the Earth's magnetic field, they have the power to disrupt satellite and communication systems, she says. The X-ray bursts only take a few minutes to reach Earth, while the electrons and protons that make up the CME can take about two or three days.
Solid design
CMEs have caused problems with satellites in the past and in 1989 one even caused a power outage in Quebec, Canada. This time, however, there were only a few unconfirmed reports of effects on satellite phone networks.
Some experts doubt that sunspots pose a threat to modern space equipment. "Nowadays we tend to design spacecraft that will be more powerful than ten or fifteen years ago," says May McKay, manager of the "Mars Express" and "Smart-1" missions of the European Space Agency (ESA) at the European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt. Germany.
So far, the solar disruptions have had no effect on the ESA spacecraft, with one exception. The X-ray Multi-Mirror Observatory (XMM) has temporarily turned off its X-ray sensors to be safe, McKay says.
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Sunspots, on Sunday (right) and last Tuesday. The storm that reached Kadvah last week met three of four conditions
A storm on the surface of the sun could disrupt communication systems
A spectacular eruption on the surface of the Sun sent charged particles towards Earth yesterday.
According to scientists, these particles could significantly disrupt communications on Earth. "The burst is moving right at us, like a freight train," said John Cole, an astrophysicist specializing in the study of the Sun at the Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In Tokyo, the Japanese Space Agency announced that the function of the Kodama communication satellite had malfunctioned, following the eruption. The agency added that the satellite's activity was temporarily suspended, and it will resume operation after the storm on the surface of the sun subsides.
The explosion of charged gas and particles into space from the outermost layer of the sun's atmosphere does not harm humans, but it can completely disrupt the functioning of communication satellites. This, when some of the emergency teams fighting the fires currently raging in California depend on them.
Similar events in recent years have disrupted television broadcasts, navigation through the GPS system, control measures on oil lines and even the flow of electricity in power lines.
Space weather forecasters warned of a solar storm as early as last week after spotting a new sunspot.
Scientists compared it to the "Bastille Day storm" that occurred in July 2000. "The Bastille Day storm caused significant disruption to advanced technology systems, both those placed on the ground and systems placed in space," said Bill Murtagh, a space weather forecaster who works for the National Administration For the study of the seas and the atmosphere.
The big storm on the sun caused disruptions in communications and airports
The earth has been bombarded for three days now with a huge amount of particles of matter thrown from the sun. This great storm - with its scientific name "Solar Corona Eruption" - is considered to be the third strongest since man began to record these unique events.
A cloud of very energetic particles travels from the Sun at a speed of 2,000 km per second, and reaches us in 19 hours. According to one report, an amount of more than ten billion tons of gas particles, protons and helium nuclei were thrown from the Sun. They create pressure on the Earth's magnetic field, and a current Induced penetrates the power lines. The penetration is accompanied by a sudden "shock" like lightning: the inhabitants of the earth do not However, as a result of that "shock" there may be disruptions in communication systems, electricity, and communication between aircraft and satellites.
Physicists said yesterday that it is possible that the two storms of yesterday and today, chasing each other as they hit the earth - will unite and their intensity will increase. That is, their effect will be doubled and tripled.
Due to the solar storms, flight controllers at many airports, mainly in the US, had to postpone take-offs and landings and introduce changes in the flight schedules, due to the disruptions to communication between the planes.
The storm also creates a spectacular sight in the sky, such as the northern lights visible in the northern regions of the Earth, such as Alaska or northern Europe. Because of the storm - flashes of light were seen from the Northern Lights to southern Mexico.
Astronomer Dr. Noah Brosh, director of Tel Aviv University's observatory at Mitzpe Ramon, said that since the material coming from the sun is thin, the inhabitants of the earth did not absorb its great radiation - "otherwise it would be equal in intensity to the degree of concentrated radiation given in radiation treatments for cancer patients and causes them to lose hair."
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The solar storm that flashed from the Sun to Earth last Friday caused some concern, but caused very minor damage that amounted to the disruption of several aerial communication systems. Another storm, which was supposed to reach the Earth yesterday evening, may be stronger, but it was also not supposed to cause serious damage.
Dr. Bruce Tsurutani, a physicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is investigating the most violent solar storm ever recorded to determine whether another "perfect" magnetic storm, capable of disrupting satellite transmissions and shutting down power systems worldwide, might strike the globe in the future the country
The storm that Dr. Tsurotani is investigating occurred on September 1 and 2, 1859. It shorted telegraph lines and ignited fires in the United States and Europe. After examining records related to the storm, Tsurotani determined that it was caused by a combination of four variables. "There have been more extreme solar events than this event. , but they did not meet the four conditions that cause a strong magnetic storm," Tsurotani said. "In September 1859, the four factors worked together."
The series of events that cause a magnetic storm on Earth begins on the surface of the Sun. A solar flare - a burst of electromagnetic radiation - is emitted from a cluster of sunspots and launches a cloud of ionized gas towards the Earth. The gas cloud, known as plasma, moves at a speed of millions of kilometers per hour. According to Tsurotani, a powerful magnetic storm is only caused when the rushing plasma has a strong magnetic field, opposite to that of the Earth. Scientists manage to measure the magnetic field of a storm only about 30 minutes before it hits.
The space storm that raced towards Earth last Friday was moving in the right direction, at high speed and with a fairly strong magnetic field - that is, it met three of the conditions. But according to Tsurotani, the direction of the storm's magnetic field was not opposite to that of the Earth, so it had only a slight effect.
In contrast, the storm in 1859, which reached the Earth in a little more than 17 hours, had a magnetic field opposite to that of the Earth. This is how charged particles managed to break through the upper layer of the atmosphere. Another storm, in 1972, reached the Earth in only 14 hours and had an intensity roughly equal to that of 1859, but the direction of its magnetic field was parallel to that of the Earth.
"At a rough estimate, the potential for another storm is there," Tsurotani said. "But we are still in the early stages of understanding the magnetic storms and the likelihood of their occurrence, because we only know of one case where all the elements happened together."
If the storm of 1859 had hit Earth today, he added, it might have knocked out power systems around the world and created such a severe drag effect on the orbits of low-altitude communications satellites that they might disappear. Scientists at NASA and the European Space Agency are looking for ways to place a satellite closer to the Sun so they can predict the direction of a space storm's magnetic field sooner.
For information in the New Scientists
