- 3458 - SOLAR STORMS - can sure disrupt things! Elon Musk's SpaceX will lose 40 Starlink satellites to a geomagnetic storm as solar activity ramps up. On February 8, 2022, SpaceX revealed that likely 40 of its 49 newest Starlink satellites that launched last February 3, were affected by a geomagnetic storm on Friday.
------------- 3458 - SOLAR STORMS - can sure disrupt things!
- This solar storm increased the density in Earth's atmosphere, increasing drag on the satellites as they were released and attempting an insertion phase into orbit. This drag kept the satellites from entering orbit and they will now burn up in our atmosphere.
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- There are more solar storms coming. While this event essentially boils down to bad timing, that doesn't mean that space weather doesn't pose a risk to technology in space. Space weather affects satellites in several different ways.
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- We can have energetic particles that will penetrate your satellite and cause single event upsets or single event effects. Or, it can create a charging environment or a static discharge can occur and that can be very big problem for satellites. These risks could grow in the next few years as we approach the next solar maximum, or the period of greatest solar activity during a solar 11-year cycle.
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- It's been very quiet for the last two to three years. But over the last year, we're starting to ramp up down to the next maximum. The solar maximum is expected in 2025. So we're seeing increased space weather activity much earlier.
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- None of SpaceX's Starlink other satellites that were already in orbit, more than 1,800 of them, were affected by Friday's geomagnetic storm event.
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- SpaceX's Starlink satellites typically orbit Earth at an altitude of about 340 miles. The 40 satellites struck by Friday's geomagnetic storm were much lower, flying as low as 130 miles, in an initial deployment orbit before they had a chance to reach their final altitude.
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- “Geomagnetic storms” are magnetic disturbances in Earth's magnetosphere caused by energetic charged particles emanating from the sun known as the solar wind. While our magnetosphere, the system of magnetic fields that surround Earth, deflects most of these particles, some get through. These storms can be mild and create beautiful auroras in the sky, but they can also interfere with our technology in serious ways.
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- Friday's particular storm follows some eruptive activity on the sun at the very end of January. This activity produced a “coronal mass ejection” (CME), powerful eruptions on the sun's surface that spew solar material outwards. CMEs can be seen as essentially a magnet that was shot out into space by the sun. During a geomagnetic storm that magnetic material is going to couple with Earth's magnetic fields.
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- The geomagnetic storm is such a complicated process, because the eruption occurs on the sun 93 million miles away. The sun brings us light and warmth to all life on Earth, but it has a temper too. Solar flares, eruptions and other sun storms can have serious effects to satellites and other systems around or on Earth.
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----------------------- Here are some of the worst solar storms known to humanity:
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-------------------------- 1859: The Carrington Event
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- The Carrington Event of 1859 was the first documented event of a solar flare impacting Earth. The event occurred at 11:18 a.m. EDT on September 1, and is named after Richard Carrington, the solar astronomer who witnessed the event through his private observatory telescope and sketched the sun's sunspots at the time. The flare was the largest documented solar storm in the last 500 years.
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- The Carrington solar storm event sparked major aurora displays that were visible as far south as the Caribbean. It also caused severe interruptions in global telegraph communications, even shocking some telegraph operators and sparking fires when discharges from the lines ignited telegraph paper.
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-------------------------------- 1972: Solar Flare vs. AT&T
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- The major solar flare that erupted on August 4, 1972 knocked out long-distance phone communication across some states, including Illinois. That event, in fact, caused AT&T to redesign its power system for transatlantic cables.
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------------------------------ 1989: Major Power Failures From Solar Flare
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- March 13, 1989 geomagnetic storm caused by an intense solar flare. This powerful solar flare set off a major March 13 power blackout in Canada that left six million people without electricity for nine hours.
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- The flare disrupted electric power transmission from the Hydro Québec generating station and even melted some power transformers in New Jersey. This solar flare was nowhere near the same scale as the Carrington event.
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-------------------------------- 2000: The Bastille Day Event
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- The Bastille Day event takes its name from the French national holiday since it occurred the same day on July 14, 2000. This was a major solar eruption that registered an X5 on the scale of solar flares.
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- The Bastille Day event caused some satellites to short-circuit and led to some radio blackouts. It remains one of the most highly observed solar storm events and was the most powerful flare since 1989.
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------------------------- 2003: The Ultra-Powerful Halloween Sun Storm
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- On October 28, 2003, the sun unleashed a solar flare. The intense sun storm was so strong it overwhelmed the spacecraft sensor measuring it. The sensor topped out at X28 but later analysis found that the flare reached a peak strength of about X45.
This solar storm was part of a string of at least nine major flares over a two-week period.
--------------------------- 2006: X-Ray Sun Flare for Xmas
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- When a major X-class solar flare erupted on the sun on December 5, 2006, it registered a powerful X9 on the space weather scale. This storm from the sun disrupted satellite-to-ground communications and Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation signals for about 10 minutes.
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- The sun storm was so powerful it actually damaged the solar X-ray imager instrument on the GOES 13 satellite that snapped its picture.
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February 12, 2022 SOLAR STORMS - can sure disrupt things! 3458
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