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Approaching Solar Storm Forces ISS to Take Cover
vichyschwa writes "A Coronal Mass Ejection resulting from an X3 Solar Flare earlier today is forcing the ISS and Shuttle astronauts to take cover and may result in communication disruptions. Last week, the same sunspot generated what astronomers described as a rarely imaged solar tsunami. The activity began with an X9 flare Dec. 5. According to Spaceweather.com, "satellites may experience some glitches and reboots, but astronauts are in no danger." However, the astronauts were ordered to a protective area of the space station as a precaution."
Image of the referenced tsunami
I lived in the north of Sweden (Luleå) for a year and one night there was going to be some major northern lights. The sky was clouded BUT the clouds looked as if they were backlit with a powerfull greenish-pinkish light! The night was quite bright and this was during the winter when even the days are dark and at best gloomy. So don't hesitate to take a look.. :)
Cheers!..
$HOME is where the
-- silver_p
According to a recent article in Scientific American, protection from radiation in space is a depressingly hard problem. Basically, the only protection known to work is to put a great many atomic nuclei in the way of the radiation. The irony is that a thin shield, such as a space station wall, may be worse than no shield at all: It stops low-energy particles, but when hit by the really nasty high-energy particles (that are out there in great numbers) secondary radiation is produced, that is in many cases more harmful than the original particles.
Leave the lead shield at home: light elements such as hydrogen work the best for shielding, both because you get more atomic nuclei per mass unit, but also because less secondary radiation is produced. Therefore, water is a good choice for a shield. You need about one meter.
Now, surrounding the ISS with a one-meter deep water shield is unfeasible. However, if you want to protect just one, or two, little things from radiation that is coming from a specific direction, you can. You carry one meter of water shielding with you at all times. Just use you body as a shield!
You will find that astronauts fall into one of two categories: Those who choose to shield their heads and those who choose to shield something else. They are easily told apart during a solar storm by their bodies pointing in opposite directions.
Just an update on the space shuttle virus situation. It seems NASA have cleaned their computers of the viruses that prevented the astronauts from receiving email attachments. At the end of this mornings wake up call, the Capcom gave this comment: "And most importantly: You are go for Outlook!". So this shows that if you just put all the best scientists in your country on the task, it is actually possible to use Outlook safely.