June 2019
Solar superstorms and their effects on Earth
... since the legendary 1859 Carrington Event. The intensity of a solar superstorm is measured by the velocity and size of a coronal mass ejection - a magnetic bubble of hot solar atmosphere thrust from the Sun into the solar wind. CMEs are...
August 2019
Lessons from the Sun
..., they could not know that associated with the flares were two ‘plasma cannonballs’ (now known as coronal mass ejections or CMEs) were aimed at Earth. The CMEs arrived at Earth in tandem early on 4 August. Travelling through interplanetary space...
August 2019
Architectural challenges of a Moon village
The concept of a ‘Moon village’, introduced in 2016 by Director General of the European Space Agency, Jan Wörner, isn’t an active project or a space programme in the traditional sense. Rather, it represents an intention or vision for spaceflight and...
February 2016
Defending Earth against cosmic hazards
... voyage and for thousands of years humans have remained blissfully ignorant of the dangers of asteroids and comets, coronal mass ejections, solar radiation flares and other cosmic events that threaten our daily existence. The Global Space...
July 2016
Our changing world and the mounting risk of a calamitous solar storm
... following: Create an artificial Van Allen ‘electro-magnetic shield’ that could protect Earth against a major solar coronal mass ejection that could otherwise have a crippling impact on the global economy and risk injury, illness or death to perhaps...
November 2016
Rosetta - an eventful cruise phase
... Sun decided to frighten us, blinding the Rosetta Star Trackers by flooding them with charged particles from a large coronal mass ejection event. Both problems occurred when Rosetta was out of radio contact, and we just about managed to quickly...
