Living With A Star

Think that astronomy is pretty cool, but not very useful in everyday living? Think again! By investigating our closest stellar neighbor, the Sun, we have been amazed at the variety of ways in which it affects our planet. Certainly, the Sun is the source of all light and heat here on Earth, but there are many types of energy other than just light emitted by the Sun. The Solar Wind is a stream of charged particles that flows away from the Sun at speeds typically around 400 km/s. This solar wind, though, is not just a steady breeze, it can become quite gusty. Eruptions on the surface of the Sun throw enormous amount of material out into the solar system. Some of these eruptions, called coronal mass ejections (CMEs), are directed toward Earth at speeds upwards of 1000 km/s. The charges particles that flow from these eruptions can become entrapped in the Earth’s magnetic field and funneled onto our poles and are responsible for the Northern Lights. These spacebourne storms are becoming of interest not just to those who enjoy the Northern Lights, but also to telecomm companies who rely upon satellites for their business. These satellites can be damaged during strong solar storms and so now space weather forecasting is becoming just as important as the forecasting of Earthly weather.

Now, thanks to the Living With a Star program, there are a multitude of spacecraft out there monitoring and reporting back on the Sun’s activity with more probes on the way. There’s a great article about a few probes from this program that are in the works that will give us even better understanding of solar dynamics and how our star can affect us here on the Earth. Check it out! The article is called Living With A Star and is at the Science@NASA website.