Research background and links

On Earth, we had several space weather related power grid outages in the past few decades. More frequent are unexpectedly strong scintilations in the atmosphere causing loss of GPS signals, which means that GPS-guided aircraft landing (e.g. during fog at Heathrow) cannot proceed at the same rate as during clear visibility, causing congestion, but not normally accidents. A very real threat is the possibility of exceeding the annual radiation limits for pregnant women (1 mSv) during a solar outburst (0.2 mSv/h) when on a flight route over the pole for several hours. Finally, outside the Earth's orbit, e.g. on a flight to the moon (or elsewhere), astronauts run a very severe risk of suffering radiation (0.5-4 Sv) from an outburst that would be comparable to that of the fireman on the roof of Chernobyl (up to 15 Sv). In Germany, the radiation exposure from Chernobyl was up to 0.4 mSv.

      

Solar Sunspot Cycle

  • The sunspot number varies in an 11 year cycle
  • Caused by the Sun's magnetic field
  • During sunspot maximum flares are frequent
  • Relevance: temporary shutdown of satellites, etc
  • Questions: why 11 years?
  • Explanation: some kind of a dynamo
  • Dynamo: like in a bicycle, but self-excited
  • ...without causing a short circuit
    		•              
  • Swedish air space closed: 4 Nov 2015
  • Interview with new SWPC director
  • In-flight radiation exposure
  • Radiation Exposure: ...being nuked?
  • Solar Flares and Air Travel
  • YouTube of 7 Aug 1972 outburst
  • Facts about ...
  • HAO educational
  • NASA: solar physics
  • All About the Sun's Light
  • Why important?
  • Solar dynamo
  • more by Andres Munoz-Jaramillo
  • and by J Werne
    •       

    Accretion Discs

  • connected with formation of stars and galaxies
  • as a gas cloud cools, it shrinks, but spins up
  • just like a pirouette dancer
  • discs also in binary stars with mass overflow

    FAQ: Where do supermassive black holes come from?

    		•              
  • NASA accretion discs
  • Active Galaxies
  • Educational link
    •       

    Galactic Magnetism

  • Observed via synchrotron radiation
  • microgauss field strengths
  • Problem: galaxies are so huge and the field so regular!
  • Also: galaxies have magnetic fields early on (at large redshifts)
    		•              
  • Atlas
    • $Date: 2016/05/27 06:44:11 $, $Author: brandenb $, $Revision: 1.19 $