A new eye on space weather, or more specifically the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), is about to be lofted into orbit by NASA (USA). The satellite is a sign of the burgeoning field of ‘space weather,’ which in our region of the solar system essentially means ‘solar weather.’ The new observatory satellite is to orbit about 30 miles (48 kilometers) from Earth and train its equipment on various types of solar activity for at least five years and more likely ten and beyond.

That equipment includes: The Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment from the University of Colorado, which monitors high levels of ultraviolet light that can affect Earth’s upper atmosphere; a spectrograph from the University of Southern California to analyze components of the heliosphere (the sun’s atmosphere), the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager to map solar magnetic fields, and the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly to photograph the surface and atmosphere of the sun. In all, it’s about $850 million of state-of-the-art solar observation equipment and brainpower to run it.

Fifty or sixty years ago none of this would have been considered necessary – nice, from a scientific point of view – but not necessary. Today with hundreds of satellites in Earth orbit and even some ground-based communications prone to difficulties caused by solar storms, prediction of solar weather is a major concern.

“SDO will target how solar activity is created and the resulting space weather by measuring the sun’s interior, its magnetic field, the hot plasma of the solar corona, and the radiation streaming from the sun,” says Tom Woods of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Solar cycles, which drive space weather, generally last about 11 years, Woods says. While the sun has been in a very quiet “minimum” phase in recent years, a series of violent solar events known as the “Halloween Storms” of 2003 included a large number of solar flares and coronal mass ejections that had dramatic effects on Earth’s space weather.

“The Halloween Storms knocked out navigation and communication systems and even caused astronauts on the International Space Station to move to more shielded quarters,” Woods says.

“The storm knocked out GPS as far south as Florida, caused aircraft to be re-routed from over the Earth’s poles because of radiation safety issues, and illuminated the Aurora Borealis as far south as Mexico through solar wind-magnetic field interactions in Earth’s upper atmosphere.”

[Source: Futurity]