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Despite advancements in communication technology and other infrastructure design, an event at the Carrington scale could still be devastating.
One of the central questions facing solar scientists today is how to predict when a threatening solar storm could break out. What is known is that the activity of the sun reaches its maximum and decreases during an 11-year solar cycle. During periods of peak activity, which occurred in 2014, the sun more frequently emits solar flares. But scientists continue to struggle when, precisely, these solar plasma explosions occur. A better knowledge of solar activity could give engineers time to prepare for a wave of solar energy entering the earth's atmosphere.
A new study, however, offers hope.
A trio of British and American scientists analyzed the last five solar cycles, dating back to the 1960s, and found a model at each solar maximum.
They looked at a satellite date of the sun's outer atmosphere, also known as the crown, the steady stream of particles emanating from the sun, and the auroras that occur as sun particles strike the Earth's magnetic field.
"For each physical variable, we find that the distribution tail (overruns above a threshold) can be resized on a single master distribution using the average and variance specific to each maximum solar interval," writes the researchers in an article published in July. newspaper Space Weather.
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In other words, by evaluating decades of information about sun activity, scientists have created an improved predictive tool for Earth-based engineers trying to protect the infrastructure from the next solar explosion.
"If the system continues to behave the same way, which we will never know for sure, this mathematical expression should hold for the next solar maximum," writes lead author Sandra Chapman, Fulbright Scholar and Astrophysicist at the University. of Kingdom, said Seeker.
Although the Chapman team's research does not predict the next Carrington-wide extreme event, it provides information on major events that could also threaten the infrastructure on Earth.
The prediction of solar activity of the sun should soon be realized. NASA's Parker Solar Probe took off on August 11 from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Base in Florida. It will orbit nearly four million kilometers in the sun. It's about eight times closer than the planet Mercury. The proximity of the probe will allow him to analyze the "bursts" of particles emitted by the sun that go towards the Earth.
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