Image Credit: SOHO, NASA, ESA Well here we go again. The Sun has belched out another stream of electrically charged particles again. We knew about it from satellite data reaching us yesterday. There's a great movie showing the creation of this Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) on the December 14th page of Spaceweather.com . This CME is likely to trigger the Northern Lights this evening. If you are fortunate enough to have clear skies and live in a rural area, take a look before bedtime.
The astronauts aboard the International Space Station will be protected from most radiation because they are orbiting well inside Earth's magnetic field. If they had been on the moon, the situation would be far worse. One of the main challenges to setting up a permanent presence on the moon is the need for adequate protection against high energy radiation. There are a number of alternatives ranging from placing the astronauts living space below ground to setting up a magnetic "force field" -hmmmm, shades of Star Trek.
Ooh! Christmas lights in the sky!
Posted by: Gwen | December 14, 2006 at 10:10 AM