SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY SCORCH : MASTER GLOBAL ESSAY

 

'' Watching The Sun '' : A new tool keeps an eye out for solar storms : Before the northern lights fill the night sky on Earth with their eerie neon glow, a blast of the electrified gas flares up from the sun's surface.

And scientists are getting a powerful new view of how those ejections move through the corona, the sun's outer atmosphere.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently unveiled the first imagery from its newest telescope in space.  Meteorologists will use pictures from the device  to help them better forecast space weather.

The new instrument is called the Compact Coronagraph, or CCOR-1. It launched in June and continuously monitors the sun, sending data to scientists every 15 minutes.

'' The forecasts can always count on it,'' said James Spann, NOAA's senior scientist of space weather observations.

In the past, scientists have relied on imagery from satellites that are primarily used for longer-term research. But according to Dr. Spann, research satellites aren't designed for continuously gathering data, meaning that forecasters may be left blind to solar activity for hours.

CCOR-1 is one solution to that. The coronagraph observes the corona, which is typically invisible from Earth.

Explosions like the ones caught by CCOR-1 are created by contortions in the sun's magnetic field, which cause it to expel hot plasma into its atmosphere.

Sometimes these storms, called coronal mass ejections, are pointed toward Earth, generating shimmering lights in our night skies.

'' Aurorae are the most visible expression of space weather,'' Dr. Spann. said. 

'' It's like the icing on the cake.''

But space weather can have dire effects. Radiation from solar activity heats up Earth's atmosphere, affecting GPS satellites and other communications systems in orbit. It can also cause power grids to fail.

NASA and NOAA recently announced that the sun had reached a peak in activity, which varies in an 11 year cycle.

That makes it vital for forecasters to stay prepared, lest a powerful blast of solar material knock out systems across the world.

'' It's not a matter of if,'' Dr. Spann said. '' It's a matter of when a big one is going to occur.''

The World Students Society thanks Katrina Miller.