Sun-orbiting satellite analyzes solar wind
Satellite image of the sun's surface. (NASA)
Dr. Steven Cranmer of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics is using a sun-orbiting satellite to learn about solar wind: hot streams of charged particles that explode off the sun’s surface.
These particles continue to heat up as they accelerate out to a coasting speed of over a million kilometers an hour. Solar winds stream past all the planets. Most take about a day to get to Earth, although some small fraction of the most energetic particles can arrive in 10 minutes. Variations in the solar winds can cause disruptions in the magnetic field surrounding Earth.
Steven Cranmer: They can sometimes fry satellite electronics altogether. Sometimes they can reach down to the ground and cause power outages and even corrode long oil pipelines. They can also cause radiation damage to astronauts that are outside the Earth’s magnetosphere. If we are going back to the moon and Mars, we would need to either develop better predictive capabilities for changes in solar wind properties or develop better shielding for the spacecraft.
Dr. Cranmer is using the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory – or SOHO. It’s equipped with special telescopes that block the sun itself, almost like a solar eclipse, to focus just on solar material flowing out into space.
Our thanks today to NASA: explore, discover, understand.
Our thanks to:
Dr. Steven Cranmer
Astrophysicist
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Solar, Stellar, and Planetary Sciences
Additional Teacher Resources
NASA: Solar Wind
This NASA website provides a tutorial on solar wind, links to solar wind activities, and links to recent news stories on solar wind.
NOAA: Space Weather Prediction Center
This website is the homepage for the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC). The SWPC is one of the nine National Centers for Environmental Prediction and provides real-time monitoring and forecasting of solar and geophysical events, conducts research in solar-terrestrial physics, and develops techniques for forecasting solar and geophysical disturbances.
NASA: The Quest to Predict the Next Space Hurricane Season
This article provides information on predicting space storms. Space storms are capable of disrupting satellites, power grids, and radio communication, including the Global Positioning System. Radiation from severe space weather can be dangerous to astronauts as well as spacecraft, so NASA works closely with NOAA to develop better space weather predictions.
