by Space weather may seem like a story from a galaxy far, far away – but when solar storms affect us on Earth, we are directly affected. These storms are the cause of the Northern Lights, for example. They can disrupt our communication systems and even our power grid. From here solar flareswe can learn so much – and recently released from NASA it tells how, back in the year 2021, one person in particular had a great story. As space agencies continue to send astronauts into our planet’s orbit, and begin planning for even longer trips, ways to monitor solar storms and their effects will become increasingly important. These storms could harm people, satellites and spacecraft; a released from 2023 by the European Space Agency discussed how, for the first timesuch energetic particles were simultaneously observed on the surfaces of the Earth, the moon and Mars after a solar burst. This raised important concerns.
“Space radiation can pose a real danger to our exploration around Solar system,” Colin Wilson, ExoMars TGO project scientist, shared in the release of the ESA. “Measuring high-level radiation events by robotic missions is critical to preparing for long-distance crewed missions.”
In an era of historic numbers of satellites and other instruments wandering through the great unknown, NASA’s helophysics missions use spacecraft to gain a deeper understanding of space phenomena and tell the stories about what happens after a solar event when particles are released into space. A a recent article from NASA a great example of the efforts being made to study the impact of solar storms resulting from the light of all the lights: The sun. This solar explosion occurred on April 17, 2021, and although these storms are not uncommon, with this specific event, the storm was so widespread that it was felt by spacecraft at different locations and positions of the explosion.
Related: Powerful solar flare releases massive plume of plasma, sparks radio blackouts across South Pacific (video)
High speed protons and electronsalso known as solar energetic particles (SEPs), spacecraft were observed not only between the sun and Worldbut so far away between Earth and Mars!
According to NASA, this was the first time something like this had happened – we now have a completely different view of solar storms using data from multiple spacecraft compared to one that can only provide a local view.
Let’s use a famous Marvel hero as an example: Thor creates a solar storm to destroy some bad guys, generating many SEPs to send out into space. He knows, however, that there are enemies on all sides. So, he makes sure to create different balls of these SEPs that can go in all different directions, covering a much wider area than a single beam can. With more “eyes” on one event, we can better understand the different types of hazards that can come from a single solar storm, which can sometimes be a threat over a larger playing field.
“SEPs can damage and disrupt our technology, such as satellites GPS,” said Nina Dresing from the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Turku in Finland in a statement. “Also, people in space or even on planes on polar routes can experience harmful radiation during strong SEP events.”
Dresing and her team conducted further research from the event to determine where the SEPs originated, how the particles got up to dangerous speeds, and when they contacted each spacecraft. The following are the conclusions (plotted on the diagram below.) The closest to the explosion (that took the hit) was the BepiColombo spacecraft, a joint mission of the European Space Agency and JAXA. BepiColombo is on the way to mercury. NASA was the second hardest hit by particles Parker Solar Probe, which sits extremely close to the sun. Next was the ESA Solar Orbiter. Parker and the Solar Orbit who was on the other side of the flame when it happened.
A little closer to home, NASA’s Earth-Solar Relation Observatory (Stereo) spacecraft, STEREO-A, of the NASA/ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and NASA’s Wind spacecraft were struck by the event. Finally, the farthest and last spacecraft to detect particles from the blast were the Mars orbiters: NASA’s MAVEN and ESA’s Mars Express.
By determining their positional differences around the sun and noting how many electrons and protons were observed by each spacecraft, Dresing and her team were able to paint a much clearer picture of what happened from the sun’s emission. .
“Multiple sources likely contribute to this event, which explains its wide distribution,” Georgia de Nolfo, a team member and helophysics research scientist at NASA. Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, the statement said. “Also, it appears that, for this event, protons and electrons could come from different sources. This is not the first time that people have thought that electrons and protons have different sources for their acceleration, this measurement was unique in that it was the multiple. perspectives that enabled scientists to better separate the different processes, to confirm that electrons and protons could come from different processes.”
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As we know, this will not be the last time an event like this will happen, and the more research we can do, the better understanding we will have of what will happen next. space weather, and the more we can carefully inspect the final limit. Future studies arising from these findings will cover a wider terrain of other phenomena; they will be conducted with instruments including the Geospatial Dynamics Constellation (GDC), sunrise, POINTand HelioSwarm.
The study was published last year in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
