Space-weather El Nino has astronomers worried
by Seth Borenstein
The Orlando Sentinel
The space equivalent of El Nino is coming. Get ready for fried satellites, trouble with cellular telephones and
cable-television transmissions, and massive power blackouts.
The sun is about to go haywire.
During the next three to four years, the sun regularly will spew out storms with electrical pulses that will probably
interfere with the electrical systems of satellites and could knock out Earth's interconnected electrical power grids. The
damage could be in the billions of dollars.
The solar-storm cycle is natural and occurs every 11 years. But experts said this cycle, which will peak in March 2000,
is going to be among the worst ever. Solar-storm activity dramatically increased this month, signaling a start to the
four-year-long storm season, forecasters said.
Solar-storm watch
"Within a couple months . . . we will see the first of these impressive (solar-storm) regions, when we get not just one flare
but a series of them," said Pat McIntosh, a veteran solar-storm forecaster. "We'll get these high-energy regions that will
damage some spacecraft."
In the past, solar storms went unnoticed because there weren't as many satellites or interconnected power grids to be
damaged. That's not the case now.
"It's the space-weather El Nino," Boston University astronomy professor George Siscoe said. "Since electrically enabled
technology is getting more and more pervasive, the impact of it is going to be more noticeable."
"The common citizen can expect some frustrating outages," said Steve Pearson, NASA space environment effects
manager.
That means sporadic periods when most people's television reception will go bad as satellites go down and programming
has to be rerouted. The same thing will happen with cellular-phone reception, with periods when people just can't get
through.
Looking ahead
But that's nothing compared to the grief expected for telecommunications companies and the U.S. Department of
Defense, which are dependent on satellites, said Gary Heckman, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
senior solar forecaster.
"We're becoming increasingly tied to space systems," said Gil Klinger, deputy undersecretary of defense for space.
Massive satellite users, including telecommunications and cable giants, will huddle next month to discuss the problem.
"You can expect fireworks anywhere from Christmas of 1999 and 2000 for the next three years," said Donald
Trombino, a speaker at next month's workshop and curator of solar astronomy at the Museum of Arts and Sciences in
Daytona Beach. "We're welcoming in the millennium with a bang."
Like all of life on Earth, it starts with the sun.
Sun spots likely
First, sun spots form on the sun. These are dark regions several times the size of Earth and thousands of degrees cooler
than the rest of the sun. They indicate that the sun is boiling over.
Giant bubbles of hot gas are trying to escape the sun, but the magnetic field is tethering them to the solar surface.
Eventually, the gas becomes too strong and erupts. The magnetic field that was holding it back is torn and spews toward
Earth, becoming a solar flare.
The gas eruptions are called coronal mass ejections and contain supercharged atomic particles that can carry deadly
X-ray particles. Those particles bombard satellites and can damage their electrical systems just like damage caused to
electric appliances in a lightning strike.
The nation probably lost at least one satellite a year during past solar storms. But now satellites are more vulnerable
because they have smaller electrical components that are more easily damaged, Heckman said.
Satellite operators said they have put some protective devices into their systems, but they know that the systems aren't
foolproof.
Unlike commercial satellites, which often don't contain expensive protection, the Department of Defense puts a premium
on such shielding, Klinger said.
Although he is concerned, Klinger said protection and redundancy will keep the military space missions safe.
Those same particles that fry satellites also could expose space travelers to radiation. NASA plans to begin putting an
international space station into orbit this year. Astronauts there could get exposed to harmful radiation, especially during
spacewalks and when the space station is flying over high latitudes. |
