Latest Space environment Stories

ESA This week, ESA opened a new Space Weather Coordination Centre to gather up-to-date information on our Sun. It is the first such data coordination center opened under the Agency’s Space Situational Awareness Programme. The new Space Situational Awareness (SSA) Space Weather Coordination Centre (SSCC) will serve as the central access point to a portfolio of European space-weather expertise for customers, including satellite operators, industrial sectors including telecommunications...

BOULDER, Colo., Nov. 8, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite built for NASA, marked one year on orbit, Sunday, Oct. 28, 2012. (Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20121108/LA08510) Suomi NPP is the bridge to the next-generation U.S. civil polar-orbiting Earth-observation satellite system. It provides continuity of critical observations for accurate weather forecasting, reliable severe...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Astrophysicists have created the first online system for predicting and forecasting the radiation environment in near-Earth, lunar, and Martian space environments. The University of New Hampshire's Space Science Center (SSC) astrophysicists created the near real-time tool to provide critical information for potential manned missions to the moon and Mars. "If we send human beings back to the moon, and especially if we're able to go...

Space scientists from the University of New Hampshire and multi-institutional colleagues report they have quantified levels of radiation on the moon's surface from galactic cosmic ray (GCR) bombardment that over time causes chemical changes in water ice and can create complex carbon chains similar to those that help form the foundations of biological structures. In addition, the radiation process causes the lunar soil, or regolith, to darken over time, which is important in understanding the...

Findings further efforts to better predict geomagnetic storms in space UCLA researchers have explained the puzzling disappearing act of energetic electrons in Earth's outer radiation belt, using data collected from a fleet of orbiting spacecraft. In a paper published today in the journal Nature Physics, the team shows that the missing electrons are swept away from the planet by a tide of solar wind particles during periods of heightened solar activity. "This is an important milestone...

Findings further efforts to better predict geomagnetic storms in space UCLA researchers have explained the puzzling disappearing act of energetic electrons in Earth's outer radiation belt, using data collected from a fleet of orbiting spacecraft. In a paper published Jan 29 in the journal Nature Physics, the team shows that the missing electrons are swept away from the planet by a tide of solar wind particles during periods of heightened solar activity. "This is an important...

The geographical sciences website EurekaMag.com publishes insights into specific subjects of all areas of geographical science. The latest review covers Aurora borealis which are the Northern Lights caused by radiation emitted as light from atoms in the upper atmosphere as they are hit by fast-moving electrons and protons. Two other newly published reviews cover Solar Flare which is a large energy release at the sun's surface, and Solar Storm which is a massive burst of solar wind...

ESA’s Proba-1 recently celebrated its tenth birthday in orbit. Kept busy as an Earth-observing mission, the microsatellite has also been building a detailed picture of changes in our planet’s radiation belts. Smaller than a cubic meter, the technology-testing Proba-1 was launched on 22 October 2001. Among the payloads was ESA’s SREM standard radiation environment monitor, which was turned on a week later. The size of a shoebox, the monitor records high-energy charged particles,...

[ Watch the Video ] NOAA is now using a sophisticated forecast model that substantially improves predictions of space weather impacts on Earth. Better forecasts offer additional protection for people and the technology-based infrastructure we use daily. Explosions in the sun’s outer atmosphere – tracked and forecast by NOAA scientists – can cause geomagnetic and solar radiation storms at Earth that can impede the operation of electrical power grids, interfere with the normal...

The Van Allen radiation belts are a hazardous environment, full of 'killer' electrons that can be lethal to orbiting satellites. And when those electrons sometimes hit the atmosphere, they alter its chemistry with implications for climate variation. Now students at a school in Yorkshire are set to help scientists better understand the belts.Dr Andrew Kavanagh will present this innovative project between Lancaster University and Headlands School and Community Science College on Wednesday 20...