Latest Space weather Stories

DENVER, May 1, 2012 /PRNewswire/-- The Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) team developing NASA and NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R series (GOES-R) satellite has successfully completed the spacecraft Critical Design Review (CDR), a major milestone that paves the way for the production of the nation's next-generation geostationary weather satellite system. The week-long review included a series of comprehensive presentations from each of the system and subsystem...

[ Watch the Video ] One day in the fall of 2011, Neil Sheeley, a solar scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., did what he always does – look through the daily images of the sun from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). But on this day he saw something he'd never noticed before: a pattern of cells with bright centers and dark boundaries occurring in the sun's atmosphere, the corona. These cells looked somewhat like a cell pattern that occurs on the sun's...

Massive solar flares could bring down the national electrical grid and affect power in the U.S. “for a period of years,” according to a 2009 NASA report. On March 27th Jack Jobe, Emmy-nominated journalist and survival teacher, shows how to prepare yourself and your family on National Geographic’s “Doomsday Preppers.” Aurora, Colorado (PRWEB) March 24, 2012 National Geographic takes viewers inside the world of Jack Jobe, a “Common Sense Survival Teacher.” Jack, founder of...

Researchers from SRI International and the University of Michigan have taken the first-ever measurement of naturally occurring auroral turbulence recorded using a nanosatellite radar receiver. The research was done with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NASA's Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) Initiative. The distinctive radar echoes recorded on March 8 were taken with the Radio Aurora Explorer (RAX) CubeSat. The RAX nanonsatellite measured turbulence over...

MENLO PARK, Calif., March 22, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Researchers from SRI International and the University of Michigan have taken the first-ever measurement of naturally occurring auroral turbulence recorded using a nanosatellite radar receiver. The research was done with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NASA's Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) Initiative. The distinctive radar echoes recorded on March 8 were taken with the Radio Aurora Explorer (RAX)...

R Darrah for RedOrbit.com [ Watch the Video ] NASA chief technologist Mason Peck and Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) met with executives and engineers at L’Garde Inc. on Thursday, March 15 to see the company’s progress on providing an in-space demonstration of a large, mission-capable solar sail. L’Garde was one of only a handful of companies to have been awarded a NASA Technology Demonstration Mission (TDM) contract last year.  The program calls for the Tustin, CA-based...

[ Watch the Solar Flare in Action Here and Here ] Two recent Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) -- massive bursts of solar wind produced by the Sun -- appear to have caused little or no damage to electrical systems, according to scientists. The CMEs were caught by NASA as they took off from the Sun, traveling faster than 1,300 miles per second. The first wave hit yesterday morning, March 8. The second hit late last night into early this morning. Joseph Kunches, a scientist with the...

[ Watch the Solar Flare in Action Here and Here ] NASA said on Wednesday that two Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are now traveling faster than 1,300 miles per second, on track towards Earth. NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) and the Solar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) caught the CMEs as they took-off from the sun. The space agency said the first CME, which is traveling at about 1,300 miles per second, will reach Earth on the morning of March 8. This CME...

A new system has been developed by British scientists that will forecast space weather in an effort to better protect satellites orbiting our planet from damaging solar storms. Led by researchers at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the SPACECAST project is expected to provide reliable web-based forecasts so that satellite operators will be able to take action to keep their navigational, communication, and scientific satellites from the radiation that solar storms produce. Researchers...

A potent follow-up solar flare, which occurred Friday (Jan. 27, 2012), just days after the Sun launched the biggest coronal mass ejection (CME) seen in nearly a decade, delivered a powerful radiation punch to Earth's magnetic field despite the fact that it was aimed away from our planet. According to University of New Hampshire scientists currently studying and modeling various aspects of solar radiation, this was due to both the existing population of energetic particles launched by the...