[LCC] SFGate: Scientists find way to predict sunspots

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Thursday, August 18, 2011 (SF Chronicle)
Scientists find way to predict sunspots
<a class="email fn" href="mailto:dperlman at sfchronicle.com">David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor</a>


   (08-18) 16:29 PDT STANFORD --
   Stanford physicists probing the sun's deep interior have predicted the
emergence of sunspots on the surface a full two days before they appear,
providing the first early warning of the violent solar storms that can
endanger astronauts in space, disrupt electric power grids on Earth, and
plunge cities into darkness.
   Erupting sunspot regions release immensely powerful blasts of x-rays and
clouds of ionized gases in two forms that speed toward Earth at millions
of miles an hour.
   Solar flares, moving at the speed of light, can intensify high-frequency
radio communications and generate the shimmering northern lights - the
aurora borealis.
   But far worse storms called coronal mass ejections can send x-rays and
immense ionized gas clouds called plasma into the Earth's atmosphere. At
their peak, these invisible electromagnetic clouds form part of the solar
wind can wipe out power lines, warp GPS location systems, distort
satellite instrument readings, and delay satellite launches.
   One such event in 1989, disrupted a Canadian power grid so badly that
circuit breakers tripped all over Quebec and much of the province was
blacked out for nine hours.
   Until now, space weather forecasters have been able to warn power
companies, airlines, NASA and others to prepare only when the sunspots and
the ensuing solar storms occurred. A longtime desire
   Solar physicist David Hathaway at NASA's Marshall Space Center in
Huntsville, Ala., called the Stanford group's predictions "an important
result."
   "It's long been our hope to see the storms of sunspots before they show
up," Hathaway said.
   The experiments that led to Friday's report in the Journal Science were
conducted by Stathis Ilonidis, a graduate student in physics at Stanford,
and his colleagues. Analyzing signals from a satellite peering at the sun,
they detected the acoustic signs of four electromagnetic storms that were
being generated as turbulence 40,000 miles deep in what Ilonidis calls
"the roaring ocean" of the sun's interior.
   His calculations showed that the sunspots raced upward from storm centers
in the sun's deep interior at speeds of more than 1,300 mph, Ilonidis
reported. Within one to two days those bursts, churning the sun's interior
like earthquakes, emerged as wide sunspot regions on the surface, he said.
It was, in effect, an achievement in what solar physicists call
"helioseismology."
   In each case, the physicists said they measured the time it took for the
storms to emerge as sunspots. The method, they said, could provide time
for forecasters to issue early warnings that episodes of bad space weather
were coming, but it first will have to be refined and proven. Using
satellite data
   The scientists gathered their observations primarily from a satellite
named SOHO- the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory - that has been flying
for 15 years as a joint project of NASA and the European Space Agency. The
satellite orbits around a point in space a million miles out between Earth
and the sun, where the gravity of each body cancels out the other and
keeps the craft on a stable path. Another NASA satellite, the Solar
Dynamics Observatory, also provided data for one sunspot detection.
   Ilonidis, who has been working on the project alongside solar physicists
Junwei Zhao and Alexander Kosovichev for 10 years, predicted sunspots and
the "minor to strong" solar storms that followed events retrospectively in
1996 and 1998, and in real time to one 2003 and most recently last Feb.
12, they said.
   Government solar scientists not involved in the Stanford work were quick
to praise it.
   Joseph Kunches, at the Space Weather Prediction Center of the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colo., called the
report "very promising," and said if it proves that sunspots can be
predicted regularly, the Stanford team's work would be a major advance.
E-mail David Perlman at dperlman at sfchronicle.com. ----------------------------------------------------------------------
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