Sun Darkens Electronics

Reported March 2006

WESTFORD, Mass. (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- The sun guides our daily routine and impacts us in ways you may not even notice. In fact, the sun can play havoc with our communications systems. Now, a new discovery may help predict when and where this will happen and help keep your cell phone static free.

TVs, radios, cell phones -- modern-day conveniences most of us can't live without, but solar activity could jeopardize our way of life. During coronal mass ejections, electrically charged particles from the sun collide with earth's atmosphere.

John Foster, Ph.D., a space physicist at MIT Haystack Observatory in Westford, Mass., says, "This material flies through inner-stellar space and impacts the Earth like a solar hammer hitting the Earth's magnetic field." This solar hammer can cause communication disruptions on the ground and a plume of electrically charged particles high in the earth's atmosphere.

Now, atmospheric scientists at MIT may have discovered a way to predict space weather disruptions by identifying these plumes over the United States.

"What we are seeing is a pattern in where these plumes are forming," says Anthea Coster, Ph.D., an atmospheric research scientist at MIT Haystack Observatory.

Scientists hope to detect these patterns with this isis instrument. Isis picks up radio signals and measures plume movement. Then, a super computer processes this data, which will alert scientists where the plumes occur, pinpointing down to the state -- even city -- that will be affected.

Foster says, "Predicting these would be a great benefit to any systems users, people who really rely on communications or navigation systems. Military operations, for one, would very much like to know what the space weather conditions would be like tomorrow."

Scientists say in the near future isis instruments will be distributed throughout the United States.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Anthea J. Coster, Ph.D.
MIT Haystack Observatory
Atmospheric Sciences
Westford, MA 01886
781-981-5753
ajc@haystack.mit.edu

For more information about solar flares and CMEs, contact:

American Geophysical Union
2000 Florida Avenue N.W.
Washington, DC 20009-1277 USA
Phone: +1-202-462-6900
(Toll Free in North America: 1-800-966-2481)
http://www.agu.org/

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