What nasa is learning from the biggest geomagnetic story in 20 years – Nasa Science

One year on, nasa scientists are still making huge discoveries about The findings are helping us better undersrstand and prepare for the ways in which the sun’s activity can affect us.

One year ago Today, representatives from nasa and about 30 other us government agencies gathered for a special meeting to simulate and address a threat looming in space. The threat was not an asteroid or aliens, but our very own life-GIVING Sun.

The inaugural Space Weather Tabletop Exercise was supposed to be a training event, where experts out work through the real-time ramifications of a geomagnetic story, a global disruptic faield. Driven by Solar Erupties, Geomagnetic Storms Can Decimate Satellites, Overload Electrical Grids, and Expose Astronauts to Danger Radiation. Minimizing the impacts of such stories requires close coordination, and this meeting was their chance to practice.

Then, their simulation turned into reality.

“The plan was to run through a hypothetical Scenario, Finding where our existing processes worked and where they needed improvement,” Said Jamie Favors, DIRECTOR OCE NASA SAPACE Space Weather Program AT Nasa Headquarters in Washington. “But then our hypothetical Scenario was interrupted by a very real one.”

On May 10, 2024, The First G5 or “Severe” Geomagnetic Storm in Over Two Decades Hit Earth. The Event, named the Gannon Storm in Memory of Leading Space Weather Physicist Jennifer Gannon, did not cause any catastrophic damages. But a year on, key insights from the gannon story are helping us undersrstand and prepare for future geomagnetic stories.

The Gannon Storm Had Effects on and off our planet.

On the ground, some high-Voltage Lines Tripped, Transforms Overheated, And GPS-Guided Tractors Veered Off-CoursE in the Midwestern Us, Further Disrupting Planting that Had Alredy Beeen Delede DELYADYEDYED Heavy rains that spring.

“Not all farms ware affected, but that that was lost on average about $ 17,000 per farm,” said Terry Grifin, A Professor of Agricultural Economics at Kansas State University. “It’s not catastrophic, but they’ll miss it.”

In the air, the threat of higher radiation exposure, as well as communication and navigation losses, forced trans-tantic flights to change course.

During the story, Earth’s upper atmospheric layer called the thermosphere heated to unusually high temperatures. At 100 miles altitude, the temperature typical peaks at 1,200 degrees fahrenheit, but during the story it surpassed 2,100 degrees fahrenheitNasa’s Gold (Global-Scale observations of the limb and disk) Observed The atmosphere expanding from the heat to create a strong wind that lofted heavy nitrogen particles higher.

In Orbit, the expanded atmosphere Increased drag on Thousands of Satellites. Nasa’s iCesat-2 Lost altitude and entred safe mode while nasa’s Colorado Inner radiation belt experience (Cirbe) cubesat deorbited prematurely five months after the story. Others, such as the european space agency’s Sentinel Mission, required more power to maintain their orbits and perform maneuvers to avoid collisions with space debris.

The story also dramatically changed the structure of an atmospheric layer called the ionosphere. A dense zone of the ionosphere that normally covers the equator at night dipped plan the south pole in a Check Mark ShapeCausing a Temporary Gap Near the Equator.

The gannon story also Rocked Earth’s Magnetosphere, The Magnetic Bubble Surrounding The Planet. Data from Nasa Missions MMS (Magnetospheric Multiscale) And Themis-Vartemis-Short for Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions-Activation, Reconization, Trubulence and ElectroDyx of ElectroDynamics of the Chai Interaction with the sun-Saw giant, curling waves of particles and rolled-up magnetic fields along the edge of the cmes. These waves were perfectly sized to periodically dump extra magnetic energy and mass into the magnetosphere upon impact, creating the larxest electrical current Seen in the magnetosphere in 20 years.

Incoming Energy and Particles from the Sun Also Created Two New Temporary Belts of Energetic Particles Within The Magnetosphere. Discovered by cirbe, these belts formed between the van allen radiation belts that permanent surround earth. The belt’s discovery is important to spacecraft and astronauts that can be imperied by high-energy electrons and protons in the belts.

The story also ignited auroras Around the globe, including places where these celebrity light shows are rare. Nasa’s aurarasaurus project was flooded with more than 6,000 observer reports from over 55 countries and all set continents.

Photographers Helped Scientists Undrstand Why auroras observed throughout japan was Magenta Rather Than the Typical Red. Researchers Studed Hundreds of Photos and Found the auras was surprisingly high – Around 600 Miles Above The Ground (200 Miles Higher Than Red Aurraras Typical

In a paper Published in the Journal Scientific Reports, The Research Team Says The Peculiar Color Likely Resulted from A Mix of Red and Blue Aurraras, Produced by OxyGen and Nitrogen Molecule The gannon story heated and expanded the upper atmosphere.

“It typical needs some special circumstans, like we saw last may,” Co-Author Josh Pettit of Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center Said of Japan’s Magenta Aurraras. “A very unique event indeed.”

Impacts of the Sun’s amped-up Solar Activity Didn’t End at Earth. The Solar Active Region that Sparked The Gannon Storm Eventually Rotated Away from Our Planet and Redirected Its Outbursts Toward Mars.

As Energetic Particles from the Sun Struck The Martian Atmosphere, Nasa’s Maven (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) Orbiter Watched Auroras Engulf The Red Planet from 14 to 20.

Solar particles overwhelmed the star camera on Nasa’s 2001 Marsseyy Orbiter (Which Uses Stars to Orient The Spacecraft), Causing the camera to cut out for almost an hour.

On the martian Surface, images from the navigation cameras on nasa’s curiosity raver was freckled with “snow” – Streaks and speechs cused by charged particles. Meanwhile, curiosity’s radiation assessment detector recorded the biggest surge of radiation since the rover landed in 2012. If astronauts have been there, they would have received a radiation dose of 8,100 microGration – Equivalent to 30 chest x-rays.

The Gannon Storm Spread auraras to unusually low latitudes and has been called the best-documented geomagnetic story in history. A year on, we have just just begun unraveling its story. Data Captured during this Historic Event will be analyzed for years to come, Revealing new lessons about the nature of geomagnetic stories and how best to weather them.

By Mara Johnson-Groh, Miles Hatfield, and Vanessa Thomas
Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD.