Tag: sun

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NASA AI Gives 30 Min. Warning

by Vanessa Thomas

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is ai-free.png

Like a tornado siren for life-threatening storms in America’s heartland, a new computer model that combines artificial intelligence (AI) and NASA satellite data could sound the alarm for dangerous space weather.

The model uses AI to analyze spacecraft measurements of the solar wind (an unrelenting stream of material from the Sun) and predict where an impending solar storm will strike, anywhere on Earth, with 30 minutes of advance warning. This could provide just enough time to prepare for these storms and prevent severe impacts on power grids and other critical infrastructure.

The Sun constantly sheds solar material into space – both in a steady flow known as the “solar wind,” and in shorter, more energetic bursts from solar eruptions. When this solar material strikes Earth’s magnetic environment (its “magnetosphere”), it sometimes creates so-called geomagnetic storms. The impacts of these magnetic storms can range from mild to extreme, but in a world increasingly dependent on technology, their effects are growing ever more disruptive.

For example, a destructive solar storm in 1989 caused electrical blackouts across Quebec for 12 hours, plunging millions of Canadians into the dark and closing schools and businesses. The most intense solar storm on record, the Carrington Event in 1859, sparked fires at telegraph stations and prevented messages from being sent. If the Carrington Event happened today, it would have even more severe impacts, such as widespread electrical disruptions, persistent blackouts, and interruptions to global communications. Such technological chaos could cripple economies and endanger the safety and livelihoods of people worldwide.

In addition, the risk of geomagnetic storms and devastating effects on our society is presently increasing as we approach the next “solar maximum” – a peak in the Sun’s 11-year activity cycle – which is expected to arrive sometime in 2025.

To help prepare, an international team of researchers at the Frontier Development Lab – a public-private partnership that includes NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the U.S. Department of Energy – have been using artificial intelligence (AI) to look for connections between the solar wind and geomagnetic disruptions, or perturbations, that cause havoc on our technology. The researchers applied an AI method called “deep learning,” which trains computers to recognize patterns based on previous examples. They used this type of AI to identify relationships between solar wind measurements from heliophysics missions (including ACE, Wind, IMP-8, and Geotail) and geomagnetic perturbations observed at ground stations across the planet.

From this, they developed a computer model called DAGGER (formally, Deep Learning Geomagnetic Perturbation) that can quickly and accurately predict geomagnetic disturbances worldwide, 30 minutes before they occur. According to the team, the model can produce predictions in less than a second, and the predictions update every minute.

AR #92

Bracing for a Carrington Event

by Frank Joseph

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Euro Space Agency: Beam Solar Energy from Space

Engineers would have to wirelessly transmit gigawatts of energy safely and reliably from space.

By Pallab Ghosh

Space chiefs are investigating whether electricity could be beamed wirelessly from orbit into millions of homes. The eventual aim is to have giant satellites in orbit, each able to generate the same amount of electricity as a power station.

While several organizations and other space agencies have looked into the idea, the so-called Solaris initiative would be the first to lay the ground for a practical plan to develop a space-based renewable energy generation system.

The program is one of a number of proposals being considered by ministers at Esa’s triennial council, which will decide the budget for the next phase of the space agency’s plans for space exploration, environmental monitoring and communications.

Josef Aschbacher, who is Esa’s director general, told BBC News that he believed that solar power from space could be of “enormous”’ help to address future energy shortages.

Satellites with solar panels would need to be around 1.7km long – more than double the size of the world’s tallest building and an order of magnitude bigger than the current largest structure in space, which is the International Space Station, measuring 110m.

The Sun’s energy can be collected much more efficiently in space because there is neither night nor clouds. The idea has been around for more than 50 years, but it has been too difficult and too expensive to implement, until maybe now.

The game-changer has been the plummeting cost of launches, thanks to reusable rockets and other innovations developed by the private sector. But there have also been advances in robotic construction in space and the development of technology to wirelessly beam electricity from space to Earth.

Referenced story with pictures and captions:
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-62982113?

AR #94

Solar Catastrophe

by Robert Schoch

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Tracking the Sun to Feed Ancient Mexicans

By Jules Bernstein

Without clocks or modern tools, ancient Mexicans watched the sun to maintain a farming calendar that precisely tracked seasons and even adjusted for leap years.Rising sun seen from the stone causeway on Mount Tlaloc in Mexico.

Before the Spanish arrival in 1519, the Basin of Mexico’s agricultural system fed a population that was extraordinarily large for the time.  Whereas Seville, the largest urban center in Spain, had a population of fewer than 50,000, the Basin, now known as Mexico City, was home to as many as 3 million people.  

To feed so many people in a region with a dry spring and summer monsoons required advanced understanding of when seasonal variations in weather would arrive. Planting too early, or too late, could have proved disastrous. The failure of any calendar to adjust for leap-year fluctuations could also have led to crop failure.

Though colonial chroniclers documented the use of a calendar, it was not previously understood how the Mexica, or Aztecs, were able to achieve such accuracy. New UC Riverside research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrates how they did it. They used the mountains of the Basin as a solar observatory, keeping track of the sunrise against the peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountains. 

“We concluded they must have stood at a single spot, looking eastwards from one day to another, to tell the time of year by watching the rising sun,” said Exequiel Ezcurra, distinguished UCR professor of ecology who led the research.

To find that spot, the researchers studied Mexica manuscripts. These ancient texts referred to Mount Tlaloc, which lies east of the Basin. The research team explored the high mountains around the Basin and a temple at the mountain’s summit. Using astronomical computer models, they confirmed that a long causeway structure at the temple aligns with the rising sun on Feb. 24, the first day of the Aztec new year.

“Our hypothesis is that they used the whole Valley of Mexico. Their working instrument was the Basin itself. When the sun rose at a landmark point behind the Sierras, they knew it was time to start planting,” Ezcurra said.

The sun, as viewed from a fixed point on Earth, does not follow the same trajectory every day. In winter, it runs south of the celestial equator and rises toward the southeast. As summer approaches, because of the Earth’s tilt, sunrise moves northeast, a phenomenon called solar declination. 

This study may be the first to demonstrate how the Mexica were able to keep time using this principle, the sun, and the mountains as guiding landmarks. Though some may be familiar with the “Aztec calendar,” that is an incorrect name given to the Sun Stone, arguably the most famous work of Aztec sculpture used solely for ritual and ceremonial purposes. 

Pictures and captions:
https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2022/12/12/precise-solar-observations-fed-millions-ancient-mexico

AR #62

What Happened to the Mayas

by Frank Joseph