Solar Storm Warning - DSCOVR satellite - Popular Mechanics t.co/TWFIbXYewf For years, sci-fi stories and real scientists have warned about the possibility of a catastrophic solar storm frying Earth’s power grid, GPS satellites, and aircraft radios. But early next year, humanity is set to get its most advanced warning system ever created for detecting these storms in enough time to take preventative action. A new satellite called DSCOVR (Deep Space Climate Observatory) is scheduled for to be launched into space aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on on Friday, January 23, 2015. Over the next three and a half months, it will float nearly a million miles away from the Earth and enter into orbit around the Sun, beginning a host of observations of our star and its effects on our planet. Most critically, DSCOVR was designed to provide a lead-time of 15 to 60 minutes before a surge of charged solar particles strikes the Earth. These surges, called coronal mass ejections (CMEs), happen when the Sun’s magnetic fields fluctuate, causing large portions of its surface (corona) to warp and expand, leading to the sun ejecting huge streams of particles at high velocity. The sun regularly emits particles in a stream called the solar wind, which strikes the Earth, but is mostly harmless. Every once in a while, though—especially around solar maximum, the peak of an 11-year natural cycle in solar activity—a big one of these coronal mass ejections is released. Directed toward our planet, it could cause the solar wind to rip parts of Earth’s own magnetic field asunder, an event known as a geomagnetic storm. While the result is beautiful auroras in the sky, the damage these storms can cause isn’t just theoretical: In 1989, one overloaded the power grid in Quebec, Canada, causing a nearly province-wide blackout. One such storm in 1859, dubbed “the Carrington event after the astronomer who described it) coursed through the global telegraph system, causing damage, sparks, and paper to catch fire. With so much of our planet now reliant upon orbital systems and satellites for communication and guidance, future events could be even more devastating — such a storm could knock out power for up to 130 million Americans, according to a recent White House report. Since 1997, a NASA satellite called ACE (Advanced Composition Explorer) has stood watch over the Sun, looking for these types of events and providing data to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), the U.S. governments official source for space weather forecasts, alerts, watches and warnings. SWPC delivers solar forecasts to affected industries, giving them time to prepare by reducing power loads or shifting flight patterns, in the case of aircraft pilots. But the ACE satellite is now more than a decade beyond its intended lifetime. If it were to fail, planet Earth would have little warning about solar weather. That’s why DSCOVR’s success is so crucial. Operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), it will provide more accurate forecasting than ACE and measure solar wind 100 times faster than its predecessor. Plus, it will measure the radiation reflected by the part of Earth lit by the Sun and capture 2048 x 2048-pixel images of our planet, which will improve the datasets used by climate scientists. That’s not bad for a spacecraft already on its second act. DSCOVR was originally commissioned in 1998 by then-Vice President Al Gore as an Earth-monitoring satellite called Traina, but the mission was cancelled and the spacecraft put into storage for seven years. In 2008, scientists figured out the spacecraft could be useful for solar observations, revived it, and re-christened it. Perhaps they should called it Phoenix instead.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 01:35:39 +0000
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