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| Solar Storm |
Washington - A solar storm on Saturday as expected, reaches the earth. Satellites were not initially affected thereby. In northern Europe there is the chance of seeing the northern lights.
A solar storm has reached the Earth on Saturday. Consequences for the satellites in orbit, the sky was not spectacular, Markus Landgraf said the ESA ESOC in Darmstadt. "Right now it looks as if we had it all unscathed." On the Standen was the storm but not quite: "Such a phenomenon takes a few days, bringing the magnetic field powerful in vibration," Landgraf told the news agency dpa. The storm had come off on Thursday from the 150 million kilometers away, Sun.
Strength and possible effects of solar storms have been of the space agencies ESA and NASA and the U.S. weather agency NOAA initially mixed. According to Esa-Pekka experts Juka Lontama solar storms have its own magnetic field. If this was addressed when it strikes the earth's magnetic north, it'll probably only a weak solar storm. "If the magnetic field is oriented south, we have strong consequences," said Lontama.
ESA spokesman Bernhard von Weyhe said early Saturday evening: "The precise consequences are still not in sight. Currently it does not look after a very big event. "
The eruption region on the sun lies slightly south, said the astrophysicist Volker Bothmer with the University of Goettingen. The so-called coronal mass ejection (CME) is losgerast with almost 1500 kilometers per second, he'll probably close to Earth about 800 kilometers per second to be fast. In clear weather, auroras can be observed in Northern Europe.
While satellites have suffered no damages could flow networks and mobile phone connections in the coming days are still quite impaired, Landgraf said. "Electricity networks more responsive to the Earth's magnetic field, and that is just beginning to reconfigure itself."
As a result of solar storms, power supplies and phone connections are affected, as the air traffic. The impact could hit Scandinavia, Canada and northern Europe. 2003, such a storm led inter alia to a several-hour blackout in Sweden, a failure of the European air radar, to shift more than 60 flights in the U.S. and the loss of the scientific satellite "Midori 2".
NOAA is expected for this Sunday, geomagnetic intensity of the storm on the scale of rank G2 of G1 (weakest) to G5 (strongest). With the explosion were also large amounts of UV radiation towards the Earth has been sent, it said in "Spaceweather.com".
Solar activity fluctuates in intervals of about eleven years and has been participating again in 2010: solar storms become more frequent and stronger. Reason for the fluctuations in the activity rhythm of gas transport in the outer layers of the sun.
News by Op-online
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