Spaceships crash into a massive solar storm

In a recent article, NASA published details of a massive solar storm that occurred on April 17, 2021. His violence was so strong that The beam, consisting of protons and electrons oscillating at the speed of light, hit many spacecraft on missions in the solar system..

According to the North American space agency, These very high-speed solar particles (SEPs) were observed for the first time by five interplanetary probes at different points in space.. The good news is that different perspectives have been obtained on a single solar storm.

Now these different SEP records are being analyzed, which can damage our satellites and disrupt GPS. The aim is to discover what types of potentially dangerous solar particles can be launched into space in different events and in different directions.

Examining a solar flare from many angles

To understand the cause of the “widespread propagation of high-intensity SEPs in the inner heliosphere,” astronomer Nina Dresing of the University of Turku, Finland, led a team of scientists to individually analyze which type of particle hit each spacecraft. and when.

The study, published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, explains that SEPs were detected at a total of 210 longitudinal space degrees. an angle much larger than normally achieved by such explosions and equivalent to two-thirds of the Sun’s rotation.

Because each spacecraft recorded a different SEP flux at its location, the authors were able to determine when and under what conditions these protons and electrons were ejected into space.

What did solar flare analysis reveal?

Observations of the big bang by different observers showed Dresing’s team that SEPs did not come from a single source or suddenly. Images show The particles were pushed “in different directions and at different times, potentially by different types of solar flares.”NASA says.

The result was that electrons were quickly carried into space by the first flash of light from the solar flare, while protons were pushed more slowly by the coronal mass ejection, which is the shock wave from the solar material cloud. For researcher Georgia de Nolfo of NASA’s Goddard Center, this separate measurement allowed “confirmation that electrons and protons may originate from different processes”.

In addition to the explosion and the release of material from the Sun, the spacecraft recorded four solar radio emissions (short, intense pulses) during the event; This could be followed by four different SEP bursts, each in a different direction. The researchers concluded that this could explain why the particles were so dispersed.

Follow the latest studies on solar flares at TecMundo. If you wish, take the opportunity to understand the relationship between the 2024 total eclipse and solar maximum.