LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The term "space weather" may conjure up images of intergalactic tornadoes and comet-filled blizzards, but that's not always the case. Space weather is actually like our weather here on Earth, but it is very different.
It actually refers to electronically charged particles and radiation from the sun and after a few quiet years, our Sun is once again ramping up its activity.
Scientists say the sun runs on an 11-year cycle. Elsayed Talaat, Director of Projects Planning and Analysis at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, (NOAA) works closely with NASA to monitor the sun's activity.
"Something inside the sun that is twisting the magnetic field every 11 years," said Talaat. "When that magnetic field gets twisted and twisted further it basically erupts in little areas and thats what these sun spots are the twisting of the magnetic field and these can erupt into explosive outbursts of energy."
So it may sound a little intense to say an explosive event, but that doesn't mean we're going to have some major impact on Earth. Talaat explained how scientists monitor these flares from Earth and what potential affects they may have.
"When we have solar flares those are bursts of electromagnetic energy that can disrupt HF communications and radio," said Talaat. "We can have radio blackouts. That is important to emergency responders and airlines, among others."
Meteorologists can predict storms around the area but monitoring active regions on the sun, scientists can predict what space weather may look like weeks ahead.
"We're monitoring these active regions on the sun and the forecasters are analyzing it using space based data and ground based data to make predictions," said Talaat. "Using models we can predict space weather from hours to days to weeks ahead."
NASA plans to launch a program called, "Artemis" to send a new group of astronauts to the moon in the near future and "space weather" will definitely play a role in their work
"NASA is working with NOAA to prepare for astronauts going to the moon and to understand the radiation environment they're going to encounter," said Talaat. "The moon leaves the Earth's, two weeks out of the month, it leaves the Earth's magnetic field - the magnetosphere - and is exposed to solar wind."
So as you can see predicting the weather in space is just as important as predicting the weather here on Earth.
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