August 2016
Our changing world and the mounting risk of a calamitous solar storm
...’s magnetic poles serve to shield us from massive blasts of ions that periodically travel from the Sun. These so-called coronal mass ejections travel at millions of kilometres an hour. If one of these CMEs were to hit Earth ...
August 2018
Measuring the pulse of Mars
... though as NASA and JPL have scheduled the official end of the MarCO mission shortly after InSight’s landing, after which the two MarCO spacecraft will retire into orbit around the Sun. About the author Dr Kerry Hebden has a PhD...
October 2019
Electric orbit raising and space weather
... orbit raising. During a radiation storm, high-energy charged particles ejected by the Sun can stream into the Earth’s magnetosphere, the magnetic bubble that surrounds the planet and acts as a protective barrier to interplanetary space. Once here...
August 2016
Fireflies and saucers
...-6 spacecraft, astronaut John Glenn noticed a strange phenomenon. The spacecraft was in orbit and, when the Sun came up, he reported with great excitement that he was surrounded by thousands of small glowing particles that were moving ...
September 2019
Extending the life of geostationary orbit satellites
...especially favourable orbit for satellite communications, because satellites in GEO appear from the ground to be stationary. However, gravitational forces exerted by the Sun and Moon cause their orbits to change and they must continually apply thrust...
May 2020
Protecting areas of scientific importance on the Moon
... lunar surface - is a potentially valuable isotope of helium that could be used in future fusion reactors. As the PSRs are shaded from the Sun, the surface material or ‘regolith’ is expected to contain less helium-3 than more exposed regions, which...
