New Astro-Model could give 24 hours' notice of a major space event

Have you ever heard of solar storms? Well, if you haven’t then i will give you a little glimpse about it in this article and you will also come to know about how it can affect the earth’s environment. Solar storms are nothing but a variety of eruption of mass and energy from the solar surface. In simple terms, it is the atmospheric effects felt on the earth’s surface due to events occurring on the sun. More scientifically speaking these occurrences on the solar surface has a direct and adverse effect on the earth’s magnetic field that can bring the power grids, navigation and communication system to a standstill.

These solar strikes generally come in surprise and can create a huge mess even resulting in a worldwide ‘black-out’. If somehow the prediction time of these solar attacks and the time-span for which the strike will remain is known, then it will be easier for the scientists to get some time in analyzing the storm and prepare for precautionary action against it.

NASA has came up with a new model that aims to enhance the prediction time for these powerful solar eruption known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), to as much as 24 hours from 1 hour notice that the current technology allows. CMEs fire off colossal clouds of charged particles, whose speeds can range from a relatively lower to that of a mind-blogging speed of 3000mph. If the CMEs magnetic fields are allied south to north of the earth’s magnetic field, the storm will not have any effect on the earth’s atmosphere and it will undamagingly pass by, but if they are arranged in the opposite direction, these storms can generate a major space weather event.

NASA’s powerful solar dynamics observatory, whose sole purpose is to continuously keep an eye on sun’s activities and report in case of any sign of flares on sun’s surface have came up with a new forecasting tool which can predict CMEs magnetic field alignment far in advance. The observatory has also been able to analyze the data about the shifting of the CME clouds movement in the aftermath of the eruption. NASA has merged these data sets to predict how these CME cloud evolves and how the magnetic field will be oriented. This invention has indeed taken one step further in depicting the safety of earth’s magnetosphere from these solar astro-storms in future.

If we take a look at the project’s practical application, the scientists from NASA’s Goddard space flight center have tested the new model from record of eight CME (coronal mass ejection) clouds, including the famous false alarm on Jan 9, 2014, in which the earth was saved from the adversity of an enormous solar eruption effect. Future testing are going on which will help the team refine the model further to make these technology more accurate and efficient.

/Anuttam/