Category Archives: Solar Science

The impact of a super geomagnetic storm could be dramatic

Earth could be in for a shock, so to speak, if it is hit with a really major geomagnetic storm: The Biggest Threat to the Global Economy Could Come From Outer Space: If the sun sneezes, the economy will shatter – Niraj Chokshi/The Atlantic.

Keep an eye on the sun with a daily peek at the HobbySpace Sun and Space Weather page.  Holds lots of real time images of the sun and data displays from solar monitoring satellites.

IRIS spacecraft, set to launch June 26th, to study the solar wind

This video shows a NASA news briefing about a new solar wind research spacecraft, the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS), which will launch this month:

NASA hosts a news update about the June 26 launch of the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) mission from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

IRIS is a NASA Small Explorer Mission to observe how solar material moves in a dynamic million-degree atmosphere that drives the solar wind around the Sun’s atmosphere. The region is the origin of most of the ultraviolet solar emission that impacts the near-Earth space environment and Earth’s climate.