Hazards of space weather and how to forecast solar wind blast

The Sun, our living star, is quite far away from Earth where we live on. Despite the distance between the Sun and Earth, which is approximately 93 million miles or 150 million kilometres, space weather effects may still impact our planet.

Solar wind happens when a stream of charged particles is released from the Sun’s upper atmosphere, known as corona. This outermost part of the Sun mostly consists of electrons, protons and alpha particles. These particles are charged with electricity that is carried by the solar wind toward Earth.

Luckily, Earth has a magnetic field and an atmosphere. The two harbor us from the solar wind blast, serving as a shield, when charged particles hit Earth’s shield.

Space weather and its dangers

In the case of auroras, these charged particles slive through the Earth’s shield to hit the atmosphere. If we look at the sky in the southern hemisphere, the irregularly shaped natural phenomenon is called “Aurora australis.” For the northern part, it is well-known with its name “Aurora borealis.”

As for the danger of space weather, it emerges as solar winds that may be much stronger during the Sun’s magnetic activity. Solar flares occur during a solar storm, coming with solar eruptions called coronal mass ejections, according to NASA.

An illustration of how space weather affects adversely a satellite operating in space. Credit: ESA

Increased radiation resulting from space weather may damage navigation and communications satellites, which usually operate in geostationary Earth orbit (GEO), and electrical grids that we receive from producers. The radiation, in addition, may be hazardous for astronauts’ health who are being in manned space missions.

On Sept. 2, 1859, the worst solar storm ever was recorded as a storm of charged particles hit Earth and resulted in havoc on the ground. The equipment of telegraph operators shorted out in the United States and Europe, says Space.com.

Some received nonsense messages that nobody had sent due to the overcharged atmosphere, per the National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service.

This is known as the Carrington Event that refers to British astronomer, Richard Carrington, who witnessed an extraordinary solar flare the day before the solar storm. “His sighting marked the discovery of solar flares and foreshadowed a new field of study,“ according to Spaceweather.com. 

ESA’s infographic shows space weather’s negative effects on different tools both in space and on Earth. Click the image to view at full size.

Another solar activity that affected Earth took place on July 23, 2012 when a massive coronal mass ejection slammed NASA’s Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO-A) satellite that orbits the Sun to withstand this kind of harmful events.

The damages are not limited to these. On Earth, aircraft electronics may adversely be affected. Crews may also be exposed to high radiation doses for a long-haul flight during a disruptive space weather event. Space weather effects on Earth may be seen in the form of pipeline corrosion and degradation of radio communications.

An ESA study estimated the potential socio-economic impact of an utmost event related to space weather in Europe might be around €15 billion.

As technology keeps being immersed in our lives, our awareness to space weather effects is foreseen to mount.

How to forecast the effects of space weather

To predict the weather in space is crucial for humanity to survive uninterruptedly. Scientists make predictions by using information satellites to foresee solar storms in advance.

Launched in 1995, NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), for instance, is keeping an eye on the coronal mass ejections. Similarly, the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is working to detect solar storms as well as alterations in solar wind.

These kinds of spacecrafts deliver necessary information to scientists to take precautions to prevent the likelihood of damage.

Rami Qahwaji, Professor of Visual Computing at the University of Bradford, and his colleagues developed a real-time automated computer system using image processing and artificial intelligence to monitor and analyse solar satellite data. 

“This helps predict the likelihood of solar flares in the coming 24 hours,” Qahwaji said in an article to The Conversation. “We pioneered new techniques for automatic processing, detection and feature extraction of solar features – like active regions and sunspots – captured by NASA’s solar dynamics observatory satellite.”

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Astronauts taking part in space missions, for which we cannot talk about Earth’s protective magnetic field, are more likely to be affected by radiation. These effects might emerge as increased risk of cancer, degenerative diseases, radiation sickness and central nervous system symptoms. 

“Despite these risks, human and robotic activities are increasing in space and Nasa is working to land humans on Mars by the 2030s. There are two rovers – Curiosity and Perseverance – and one lander currently operational on Mars, with another rover planned for launch in 2022,” Qahwaji says. 

The space weather prediction system created by Qahwaji and his team is publicly available and “is now used as one of the decision-making tools for Nasa’s robotic missions and to manage radiation effects on Nasa’s Chandra X-ray observatory orbit.”

“As we continue venturing further into space, we’ll need to strengthen our current space weather prediction capabilities to build a greater picture of solar activity and mitigate its effects around the solar system,” he concluded.