3 ms·
I've made this point on HN a few times, but "space weather forecasting" has become an industry in itself. A lot of scientists have made predictions for the next
by ced 16y ago
I've made this point on HN a few times, but "space weather forecasting" has become an industry in itself. A lot of scientists have made predictions for the next cycle. The big problem is that cycles last 11 years, and the predictions are of the form "Very strong cycle", or "Abnormally weak cycle". You can see why "This researcher has correctly predicted the last two cycles" can easily be attributed to luck. Given that a research career spans at most 4 such cycles, it's hard to demonstrate one's ability.
There's a few respected solar scientists who have written papers to the effect that such forecasting is way beyond our capabilities (there's hints of chaotic behavior in the sun). But these papers don't get any citations, because if they're right, most of the money in this field will dry up. No one wants that to happen.
With that said, Cringely speaks of a two-year forecast, and I don't know if that is short-term enough to be feasible. Still, I'm skeptical of the impending doom predictions, because it takes only one known scientist willing to beat the drum for the government to worry about its space-bound investment (and quite reasonably so).
- stcredzero 16y agoSomeone could probably make money by launching 6 or so observation satellites around Mercury and at Mercury Trojan points. Since mass ejections are directional, we should be able to quickly confirm that as the cause of failure for a satellite with the others, and send out a digitally signed warning via the networks. This should give us a couple of minutes time to shut machinery down.
- epochwolf 16y agoI think we already have a couple of satellites deployed. (Source is a documentary I watched last month)
- Splines 16y agoAccording to Wikipedia, CMEs have a top speed of 3200km/s. The earth is 147Mm from the sun (at its closest), so we'd have a minimum of 12 hours warning. How vulnerable are electronic devices that are powered off to CMEs? I imagine that while we have sufficient warning, there is also considerable variation in CME speed (and size?). It might be difficult to coordinate "turn stuff back on" day without functioning communication systems.
- Nick_C 16y agoJust to note: Mercury is incredibly hard to get to, and it's almost impossible to maintain a stable long-term orbit there, at least in terms of our fuel technology. Forget Lagrange points, even just orbiting it is hard. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Mercury http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Mercury The U.S. has a probe on the way: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/main/index.html http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/main/index.html