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Sun May Disrupt Spacecraft and Satellites In Coming Decades

Posted by Soulskill on from the great-balls-of-fire dept.

dtjohnson writes "A newly published study (abstract) predicts that solar storms are going to become increasingly disruptive to satellites and communications in the coming decades as the sun cycles towards a minimum of activity. 'The work, published in Geophysical Research Letters, predicts that once the Sun shifts toward an era of lower solar activity, more hazardous radiation will reach Earth. The team says the Sun is currently at a grand solar maximum. This phase began in the 1920s — and has lasted throughout the space age....The evidence seems to indicate that although there are fewer solar storms once the Sun leaves its grand maximum, they are more powerful, faster and therefore carry more particles.'"

6 of 70 comments (clear)

  1. Sun? Oh how the mighty have fallen... by Binestar · · Score: 5, Funny

    I knew Oracle buying Sun would be a bad thing, but seriously, why would they want to screw up our communication system?

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  2. Re:It is time for electromagnetic shielding then. by elsurexiste · · Score: 2

    But shouldn't this protection require massive amounts of energy to maintain?

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  3. Re:corepirate nazi execrable censoring /. (hidden) by MBGMorden · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We really should have a "-1, Incoherent Babbling" mod option.

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  4. Re:It is time for electromagnetic shielding then. by Shatrat · · Score: 3, Informative

    No, small amounts of aluminum mesh.

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  5. We are already seeing the effect of this... by quetwo · · Score: 2

    In the past few years we have seen more and more hits of our communication systems because of flare-ups from the Sun. Heck, just last year we had a pretty major television sattelite "Galaxy-11" knocked out and left for dead because of a solar flare (they have since been able to regain control of it after declaring it as space-trash and getting it ready to burn it up in the atomosphere). So much of our communications systems are tied to sattelites and long-range RF communication systems that are vunerable to these flare up that this will become more and more of a problem as time goes on...

  6. Re:It is time for electromagnetic shielding then. by rossdee · · Score: 3, Funny

    Polarize the hull plating
    at least til we invent shield technology
    we could also reconfigure the main deflector dish.