Space weather
As we go about living our lives worrying about tomorrow’s weather, we’re totally unware of the effects of solar winds, flares, intense x-rays and electromagnetic radiation our planet has to cope with on a daily basis. Generated by our sun 150 million km away, solar flares are massive explosions on the surface of the sun, equivalent of millions of megatons-sized hydrogen bombs exploding all at once. Solar flares produce a burst of radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to x-rays and gamma-rays.
Luckily for us, our planet’s magnetic shield, the magnetosphere, and our upper atmosphere, the ionosphere, absorbs much of these potentialy devestating effects, and so we go on worrying about the rain, snow, wind and temperature.
For all of you intersted in a solar forecast, vist Spaceweather for a up-to-date
report on the activities of our star. The US space environment center is another great resource for solar events and alerts.
chris on April 17th 2003 in Uncategorized
One Response to “Space weather”
[jc] responded on 20 Apr 2003 at 9:53 am #
Where would we be without ‘kapottes’.