The sun is a tempestuous place prone to proton and electron particle storms that can speed across a 150-million-kilometer space chasm to bash into Earth’s atmosphere, potentially disrupting satellite service, damaging telecommunications networks, causing power grid blackouts and endangering high-altitude aircraft as well as astronauts on board the International Space Station . With the cycle of solar storms set to peak in the next three to five years, scientists at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) are searching for ways to gather and analyze information that will enable them to forecast severe solar storms . [More]













Scientific American - Space