Life next to the Sun is poses an ever-increasing threat to the technologies on which we are becoming increasingly reliant. Scientists have consequently meet to discuss the solar activity, its influence on Earth, and what can be done about it.
The Sun is the dominate force of our cosmic neighbourhood known as the Solar System.
Unpredictable and temperamental, the Sun has made life on the inner planets Mercury and Venus impossible due to intense radiation and colossal amounts of energetic material spewed in every direction.
Such volatile solar emissions create the unpredictable conditions dubbed “space weather”.
Earth’s magnetic field protects all life our planet from the brutal solar wind, a deadly stream of electrons, protons and heavier ions from the Sun.
And Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) – the Sun’s seasonal outbursts of billion-tonne clouds of solar plasma into space also pose a very real threat.
The most extreme events, arrivals of fast CMEs or high-speed solar-wind streams, are capable of penetrating Earth’s protective magnetic shield, triggering geomagnetic storms.
Such storms can and have caused significant problems for technological systems.
These include damaging satellites in space and everything else reliant on them, from navigation to telecommunication.
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Key infrastructure such as power grids on Earth can fail and esker storms can even creating a potentially deadly radiation hazard for astronauts in space.
However, while these events cannot be stopped, advance warning of oncoming solar storm will give operators of satellites, power grids and telecommunication systems time to take protective measures.
ESA is now planning a unique mission that will do just this.
The space agency’s Lagrange mission will make much-needed observations of the Sun, providing the necessary information for such advance warnings.
ESA Lagrange mission:
The Lagrange point is a position in space where the gravitational forces of the Sun and Earth balance out.
The satellite will at this point monitor potentially hazardous sunspots and high-speed solar wind streams before they strike Earth.
Lagrange will detect solar events and their propagation toward the Earth with higher accuracy than is possible today, transmitting data to Earth and distributing it into ESA’s Space Weather Service Network in near real-time, to generate warnings and forecasts.
As much of modern human society becomes ever more reliant on space-based services, vulnerable to the Sun’s outbursts, protective measures against space weather are becoming ever-more important.
ESA Lagrange mission:
The Lagrange point is a position in space where the gravitational forces of the Sun and Earth balance out.
The satellite will at this point monitor potentially hazardous sunspots and high-speed solar wind streams before they strike Earth.
Lagrange will detect solar events and their propagation toward the Earth with higher accuracy than is possible today, transmitting data to Earth and distributing it into ESA’s Space Weather Service Network in near real-time, to generate warnings and forecasts.
As much of modern human society becomes ever more reliant on space-based services, vulnerable to the Sun’s outbursts, protective measures against space weather are becoming ever-more important.
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