• Question: Do you know when the sun will give a sudden burst of energy and destroy the satalites in space?

    Asked by aliahana to Amy, Grant, Martin, Shawn, Usman on 8 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Grant Kennedy

      Grant Kennedy answered on 8 Mar 2013:

      While a really massive Solar flare might wipe out some satellites, it’s pretty unlikely. Only a few have had any serious problems in the last 50 years.

      The real problem is that the Solar wind and other stuff that comes out just wears out the satellites. Like they slowly wear away the solar panels, kind of like sandblasting!

    • Photo: Martin Archer

      Martin Archer answered on 9 Mar 2013:

      At the moment we can’t predict when solar storms will happen, but we can see them happen with satellites like STEREO. Check this video http://youtu.be/4tXfEKXJMWw we can see plasma being ejected from the Sun.

      But even when we see that it’s difficult to know whether it will hit Earth and when. Ultimately our best guess of whether it will come at us and have any effect at all is usually 30 mins beforehand from satellites just ahead of us, not much time at all really!

      Really big “satellite killers” are pretty rare though, but it’s something we need to think about and try to protect against. These “space weather” effects can also affect flights around the North Pole and even Power Grids, plus they often make pretty aurora like the Northern Lights.

    • Photo: Shawn Domagal-Goldman

      Shawn Domagal-Goldman answered on 12 Mar 2013:

      We get a *little* warning by some of the satellites (like STEREO, SOHO, and SDO) that watch the Sun. But that little warning helps a LOT. It means we can put our most expensive space missions in a “safe mode” to protect them from that radiation as much as possible. It also means that if there was a HUGE solar storm that could damage our energy grid, we’d be able to shut down the energy grid in advance and prevent that damage.

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