Archiv: space weather / Weltraumwetter


24.04.2023 - 12:20 [ University of Maryland ]

Space Mission First to Observe Key Interaction Between Magnetic Fields of Earth and Sun

(12 May 2016)

Most people do not give much thought to the Earth’s magnetic field, yet it is every bit as essential to life as air, water and sunlight. The magnetic field provides an invisible, but crucial, barrier that protects Earth from the sun’s magnetic field, which drives a stream of charged particles known as the solar wind outward from the sun’s outer layers. The interaction between these two magnetic fields can cause explosive storms in the space near Earth, which can knock out satellites and cause problems here on Earth’s surface, despite the protection offered by Earth’s magnetic field.

A new study co-authored by University of Maryland physicists provides the first major results of NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission, including an unprecedented look at the interaction between the magnetic fields of Earth and the sun. The paper describes the first direct and detailed observation of a phenomenon known as magnetic reconnection, which occurs when two opposing magnetic field lines break and reconnect with each other, releasing massive amounts of energy.

The discovery is a major milestone in understanding magnetism and space weather.

24.04.2023 - 12:17 [ National Aeronautics and Space Administration ]

Magnetic Portals Connect Earth to the Sun

Oct. 30, 2008: During the time it takes you to read this article, something will happen high overhead that until recently many scientists didn‘t believe in. A magnetic portal will open, linking Earth to the sun 93 million miles away. Tons of high-energy particles may flow through the opening before it closes again, around the time you reach the end of the page.

„It‘s called a flux transfer event or ‚FTE,'“ says space physicist David Sibeck of the Goddard Space Flight Center. „Ten years ago I was pretty sure they didn‘t exist, but now the evidence is incontrovertible.“

Indeed, today Sibeck is telling an international assembly of space physicists at the 2008 Plasma Workshop in Huntsville, Alabama, that FTEs are not just common, but possibly twice as common as anyone had ever imagined.

14.11.2021 - 11:19 [ National Aeronautics and Space Administration ]

Solar Activity Forecast for the Next Decade

(12.06.2019)

The results show that the next Solar Cycle will start in 2020 and reach a maximum in 2025.Cycle 25 is expected to be even weaker than the current solar cycle.

According to this forecast, upcoming solar activity will be the weakest in the last 200 years.

25.10.2021 - 18:48 [ National Aeronautics and Space Administration ]

With NASA Data, Researchers Find Standing Waves at Edge of Earth’s Magnetic Bubble

(Oct.6, 2021)

The latest work considers the waves that form across the entire surface of the magnetosphere, using a combination of models and observations from NASA’s THEMIS mission, Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms.

The researchers found when solar wind pulses strike, the waves that form not only race back and forth between Earth’s magnetic poles and the front of the magnetosphere, but also travel against the solar wind. Archer likened these two kinds of movement to crossing a river: A boat can go from one riverbank to the other (traveling towards the poles) and upstream (against the solar wind). At the front of the magnetosphere, these waves appear to stand still.

21.02.2021 - 03:32 [ NASA.gov ]

NASA Missions Make Unprecedented Map of Sun’s Magnetic Field

They’ll have a chance to take that step forward soon: A re-flight of the mission was just greenlit by NASA. Though the launch date isn’t yet set, the team plans to use the same instrument but with a new technique to measure a much broader swath of the Sun.

“Instead of just measuring the magnetic fields along the very narrow strip, we want to scan it across the target and make a two-dimensional map,” McKenzie said.

15.09.2020 - 15:27 [ Potsdam Institute / Youtube ]

Rossby waves and extreme weather

(15.4.2016)

Learn how giant airstreams high in the sky get trapped sometimes – leading to devastating weather extremes on the ground. Copyright: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research PIK and Climate Media Factory. This video was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

05.07.2020 - 14:53 [ Xinhuanet ]

China launches satellite for space environment study

China successfully sent a satellite for space environment study and related technology experiments into the planned orbit from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on Sunday.

02.04.2020 - 18:16 [ Xinhuanet ]

NASA selects new mission to study giant solar particle storms

The new mission, called the Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment (SunRISE), will help understand how the solar system works to protect astronauts traveling in space by providing better information on how the Sun‘s radiation affects the space environment, said the release.

09.02.2020 - 16:46 [ SWR ]

Europäische Sonde Solar Orbiter fliegt zur Sonne

Forscher wollen mit den so gewonnenen Daten klären, wie das Wetter im Weltall entsteht.

11.08.2019 - 14:14 [ National Aeronautics and Space Administration ]

The Space Station Crosses a Spotless Sun

(15.07.2019)

Transiting the Sun is not very unusual for the ISS, which orbits the Earth about every 90 minutes, but getting one‘s timing and equipment just right for a great image is rare. Strangely, besides that fake spot, in this recent two-image composite, the Sun lacked any real sunspots. The featured picture combines two images — one capturing the space station transiting the Sun — and another taken consecutively capturing details of the Sun‘s surface. Sunspots have been rare on the Sun since the dawn of the current Solar Minimum, a period of low solar activity. For reasons not yet fully understood, the number of sunspots occurring during both the previous and current solar minima have been unusually low.

11.08.2019 - 14:03 [ Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) ]

Solar Cycle 25: May Be The Smallest In Over 300 Years

(26.01.2012)

Livingston and Penn provided the first hard estimate of Solar Cycle 25 amplitude based on a physical model. That estimate is 7, which would make it the smallest solar cycle for over 300 years.

This is figure 2 from their paper:

Livingston and Penn have been tracking the decline in sunspot magnetic field, predicting that sunspots will disappear when the umbral magnetic field strength falls below 1,500 gauss, as per this figure from their 2010 paper:

11.08.2019 - 13:58 [ NationalGeographic.com ]

Sun Headed Into Hibernation, Solar Studies Predict: Sunspots may disappear altogether in next cycle.

(14.06.2011)

This time, however, the rush to the poles is more of a crawl, which means we could be headed toward a very weak solar maximum in 2013—and it may delay or even prevent the start of the next solar cycle.

Taken together, the three lines of evidence strongly hint that Solar Cycle 25 may be a bust, the scientists said today during a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

11.08.2019 - 13:45 [ National Aeronautics and Space Administration ]

Long Range Solar Forecast: Solar Cycle 25 peaking around 2022 could be one of the weakest in centuries.

(10.05.2006)

How do you observe a belt that plunges 200,000 km below the surface of the sun?

„We do it using sunspots,“ Hathaway explains. Sunspots are magnetic knots that bubble up from the base of the conveyor belt, eventually popping through the surface of the sun. Astronomers have long known that sunspots have a tendency to drift—from mid solar latitudes toward the sun‘s equator. According to current thinking, this drift is caused by the motion of the conveyor belt. „By measuring the drift of sunspot groups,“ says Hathaway, „we indirectly measure the speed of the belt.“

11.08.2019 - 13:22 [ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA.gov) ]

Space Weather Impacts On Climate

All weather on Earth, from the surface of the planet out into space, begins with the Sun. Space weather and terrestrial weather (the weather we feel at the surface) are influenced by the small changes the Sun undergoes during its solar cycle.

(…)

The duration of solar minimum may also have an impact on Earth‘s climate. During solar minimum there is a maximum in the amount of Cosmic rays, high energy particles whose source is outside our Solar system, reaching earth. There is a theory that cosmic rays can create nucleation sites in the atmosphere which seed cloud formation and create cloudier conditions. If this were true, then there would be a significant impact on climate, which would be modulated by the 11-year solar cycle.

01.10.2018 - 18:50 [ Potsdam Institute / Youtube ]

Rossby waves and extreme weather

(15.4.2016) Learn how giant airstreams high in the sky get trapped sometimes – leading to devastating weather extremes on the ground. Copyright: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research PIK and Climate Media Factory. This video was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). PIK research on the subject: – Evidence for wave resonance as a key mechanism for generating high-amplitude quasi-stationary waves in boreal Summer

19.08.2018 - 17:25 [ Potsdam Institute / Youtube ]

Rossby waves and extreme weather

(15.4.2016) Learn how giant airstreams high in the sky get trapped sometimes – leading to devastating weather extremes on the ground. Copyright: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research PIK and Climate Media Factory. This video was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). PIK research on the subject: – Evidence for wave resonance as a key mechanism for generating high-amplitude quasi-stationary waves in boreal Summer

19.08.2018 - 17:09 [ National Center for Atmospheric Research, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research / ScienceDaily.com ]

Scientists link California droughts, floods to distinctive atmospheric waves

(6.4.2017) Wavenumber-5 consists of five pairs of alternating high- and low-pressure features that encircle the globe about six miles (10 kilometers) above the ground. It is a type of atmospheric phenomenon known as a Rossby wave, a very large-scale planetary wave that can have strong impacts on local weather systems by moving heat and moisture between the tropics and higher latitudes as well as between oceanic and inland areas and by influencing where storms occur.

The slow-moving Rossby waves at times become almost stationary. When they do, the result can be persistent weather patterns that often lead to droughts, floods, and heat waves.

19.08.2018 - 16:56 [ University Corporation for Atmospheric Research . ]

Planetary waves, first found on Earth, are discovered on Sun

(27.3.2017) for a brief period, from 2011 to 2014, scientists had the unprecedented opportunity to see the Sun‘s entire atmosphere at once. During that time, observations from NASA‘s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), which sits between the Sun and Earth, were supplemented by measurements from NASA‘s Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) mission, which included two spacecraft orbiting the Sun. Collectively, the three observatories provided a 360-degree view of the Sun until contact was lost with one of the STEREO spacecraft in 2014. McIntosh and his co-authors mined the data collected during the window of full solar coverage to see if the large-scale wave patterns might emerge.

„By combining the data from all three satellites we can see the entire Sun, and that‘s important for studies like this because you want the measurements to all be at the same time,“ said Dean Pesnell, SDO project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. „They’re pushing the boundary of how we use solar data to understand the interior of the Sun and where the magnetic field of the Sun comes from.“

19.08.2018 - 15:51 [ Massachusetts Insitute of Technology ]

Study: Hole in ionosphere is caused by sudden stratospheric warming

(6.8.2018) Geospace research has long established that certain changes in the atmosphere are caused by the sun’s radiation, through mechanisms including solar wind, geomagnetic storms, and solar flares. (…)

One of the more scientifically interesting large-scale atmospheric events is called a sudden stratospheric warming (SSW), in which enormous waves in the troposphere — the lowermost layer of the atmosphere in which we live — propagate upward into the stratosphere. These planetary waves are generated by air moving over geological structures such as large mountain ranges; once in the stratosphere, they interact with the polar jet streams.

19.08.2018 - 14:34 [ SpaceWeatherArchive.com ]

A Mystery in the Mesosphere

(15.8.2018) Harvey and her colleagues are still working to understand how the extra water got up there. One possibility involves planetary wave activity in the southern hemisphere which can, ironically, boost the upwelling of water vapor tens of thousands of miles away in the north. The phenomenon could also be linked to solar minimum, now underway. It is notable that the coldest and wettest years in the mesosphere prior to 2018 were 2008-2009–the previous minimum of the 11-year solar cycle.

19.08.2018 - 13:32 [ National Snow and Ice Data Center ]

New study explains Antarctica’s coldest temperatures

(25.6.2018) That preliminary study has been revised with new data showing that the coldest sites actually reach -98 degrees Celsius (-144 degrees Fahrenheit). The temperatures are observed during the southern polar night, mostly during July and August.

When the researchers first announced they had found the coldest temperatures on Earth five years ago, they determined that persistent clear skies and light winds are required for temperatures to dip this low. But the new study adds a twist to the story: Not only are clear skies necessary, but the air must also be extremely dry, because water vapor blocks the loss of heat from the snow surface.

19.08.2018 - 13:31 [ boingboing.net ]

Coldest temperature ever recorded makes Earth „almost like another planet“

Nearly 15 degrees colder than the previous record-breaking coldest temperature, which was -128 degrees in 1983 near the South Pole, the temperature in Antarctica dropped to -144 degrees Fahrenheit.

Temperatures this low make Antarctica „almost like another planet,“ says lead researcher Ted Scambos at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, quoted in Forbes.

Taking just a few breaths of air this cold would kill you.

19.08.2018 - 12:57 [ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ]

Watching the Sun for Space Weather

(10.8.2018) “Space weather occasionally occurs in tandem with extreme terrestrial weather,” according to scientists from NCEI, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), and other institutions in an open access Space Weather journal article. “When it does, the struggle to mitigate the impacts to life and property can be dramatically intensified. This one-two punch landed on the socioeconomically and technologically diverse communities of the Caribbean islands during the September 2017 hurricane season.”