NASA scientists demonstrate technique to improve particle warnings that protect astronauts
Scientists from NASA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research, or NCAR, in Boulder, Colorado, have shown that the warning signs of one type of space weather event can be detected tens of minutes earlier than with current forecasting techniques – critical extra time that could help protect astronauts in space.
Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere protect us on the ground from most of the harmful effects of space weather, but astronauts in low-Earth orbit — or even, one day, in interplanetary space — are more exposed to space weather, including bursts of fast-moving particles called solar energetic particles, or SEPs.
“Robotic spacecraft are usually radiation-hardened to protect against these kinds of events,” said Chris St. Cyr, a space scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author on the study. “But humans are still susceptible.”
“With space-based coronagraphs, we get images back every 20-30 minutes,” said St. Cyr. “You’ll see the CME in one frame, and by the time you get the next frame — which contains the information we need to tell how fast it’s moving — the energetic particles have already arrived.”
For this study, scientists worked backwards to see whether they could use a ground-based coronagraph to get that key information on the CME’s speed fast enough to lengthen the warning time. They selected an SEP event and then went back to check if the data was available from a coronagraph called K-Cor, which is part of NCAR’s High Altitude Observatory and sits on top of the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii. Their search confirmed that the necessary information to predict the arrival of the energetic particles was available about 45 minutes before the particles arrived at Earth — tens of minutes before they left the sun’s inner atmosphere.
The next step is to repeat this study over and over — using both archived data and future observations — in order to see if the early signatures of these energetic particles can be reliably detected in K-Cor’s images. This confirmation, along with planned improvements that would put K-Cor’s images online even faster, could make it possible for this technique to become a tool in space weather forecasting, such as is provided for the nation by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.
“Robotic spacecraft are usually radiation-hardened to protect against these kinds of events,” said Chris St. Cyr, a space scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author on the study. “But humans are still susceptible.”
“With space-based coronagraphs, we get images back every 20-30 minutes,” said St. Cyr. “You’ll see the CME in one frame, and by the time you get the next frame — which contains the information we need to tell how fast it’s moving — the energetic particles have already arrived.”
For this study, scientists worked backwards to see whether they could use a ground-based coronagraph to get that key information on the CME’s speed fast enough to lengthen the warning time. They selected an SEP event and then went back to check if the data was available from a coronagraph called K-Cor, which is part of NCAR’s High Altitude Observatory and sits on top of the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii. Their search confirmed that the necessary information to predict the arrival of the energetic particles was available about 45 minutes before the particles arrived at Earth — tens of minutes before they left the sun’s inner atmosphere.
The next step is to repeat this study over and over — using both archived data and future observations — in order to see if the early signatures of these energetic particles can be reliably detected in K-Cor’s images. This confirmation, along with planned improvements that would put K-Cor’s images online even faster, could make it possible for this technique to become a tool in space weather forecasting, such as is provided for the nation by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.
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| Credits: NASA/ESA/SOHO/SDO/Joy Ng and MLSO/K-Cor |
Source: NASA
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