Solar storms — powerful eruptions of material from the Sun and magnetic fields into interplanetary space — can cause “space weather” near Earth, scientists have found.

The space weather results in hazards that range from interference with communications systems and GPS errors to extensive power blackouts and the complete failure of critical satellites, researchers said.

New study increases our understanding of Earth’s space environment and how space weather develops.

Some of the energy emitted by the Sun during solar storms is temporarily stored in Earth’s stretched and compressed magnetic field.

Eventually, that solar energy is explosively released, powering Earth’s radiation belts and lighting up the polar skies with brilliant auroras, researchers said.

While it is possible to observe solar storms from afar with cameras, the invisible process that unleashes the stored magnetic energy near Earth had defied observation for decades.

Researchers from the UCLA College of Letters and Science, the Austrian Space Research Institute and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) report that they finally have measured the release of this magnetic energy close up using an unprecedented alignment of six Earth-orbiting spacecraft and NASA’s first dual lunar orbiter mission, ARTEMIS.

Space weather begins to develop inside Earth’s magnetosphere, the giant magnetic bubble that shields the planet from the supersonic flow of magnetised gas emitted by the Sun.

During solar storms, some solar energy enters the magnetosphere, stretching the bubble out into a long, teardrop-shaped tail that extends more than a million miles into space.

The stored magnetic energy is then released by a process called “magnetic reconnection.”

This event can be detected only when fast flows of energised particles pass by a spacecraft positioned at exactly the right place at the right time.

The study was published in journal Science.

Related Topics