Latest Space weather Stories

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...

[ Video 1 ] | [ Video 2 ] The largest solar particle event since 2005 hit the Earth, Mars and the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft travelling in-between, allowing the onboard Radiation Assessment Detector to measure the radiation a human astronaut could be exposed to en route to the Red Planet. On Sunday, a huge coronal mass ejection erupted from the surface of the sun, spewing a cloud of charged particles in our direction, causing a strong "S3" solar storm. A NASA Goddard Space...

[ Watch the Video ] The sun unleashed an X1.8 class flare that began at 1:12 PM ET on January 27, 2012 and peaked at 1:37. The flare immediately caused a strong radio blackout at low-latitudes, which was rated an R3 on NOAA's scale from R1-5. The blackout soon subsided to a minor R1 storm. Models from NASA's Goddard Space Weather Center predict that the CME is traveling at over 1500 miles per second. It does not initially appear to be Earth-directed, but Earth may get a glancing blow....

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...

Improved Forecasting to Coincide with Peak in Solar Activity After years of relative somnolence, the sun is beginning to stir. By the time it's fully awake in about 20 months, the team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., charged with researching and tracking solar activity, will have at their dispoal a greatly enhanced forecasting capability. Goddard's Space Weather Laboratory recently received support under NASA's Space Technology Program Game Changing Program to...

[ Watch the Video ] A solar flare from Sunday collided with Earth on Tuesday, becoming the largest solar radiation storm since October 2003. NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center has categorized the storm as "strong," or an S3, storm.  These storms can affect satellite operations and short wave radio propagation, but do not cause any harm to humans on Earth. Some polar flights, including a dozen Delta Air Lines planes, were re-routed to avoid communications lapses and exposing...