February 2, 1999 Magnetic fields are found in many different locals throughout the universe. The Earth's field on this scale is a modest 0.6 Gauss. Some sun spot fields can be as strong as 5,000 Gauss, but for the most powerful fields, you need to visit distant neutron stars which tip the magnetic scales at over 1 trillion Gauss! Physicists have long been curious to study how matter behaves in the presence of intense magnetic fields, so in recent decades that have tried to create the most powerful fields possible under controlled laboratory conditions. An article in Physics Today magazine (October, 1996) describes Los Alamos National Laboratory experiments where explosively compressing magnetic materials to very small volumes produces fields as strong as 10 million Gauss (1000 Tesslas). These fields, however, can only be created for a few millionths of a second in a region a few millimeters across. Nature still has the monopoly on being able to create powerful fields lasting millions of years! February 1, 1999 The star 18 Scorpii has been identified by astronomer Gustavo Porto de Mello of the Federal University in Rio de Janeiro, as a near-twin to our own Sun. At a distance of 46 light years, this G-type star produces only 5% more light than our Sun, and is only slightly older. Also, its mass, temperature, chemical composition, color, surface gravity and rotation velocity are also virtually identical to the Sun's. Previously, Alpha Centauri was the nearest solar twin but it produces 52 % more light than the Sun, and has 60% more iron in composition. Studies of solar twins, for which nearly a dozen are known, provide a critical means of comparing just how typical our Sun is in its evolution and most importantly its surface activity. Both of these factors play an important role in modifying terrestrial climate, but without other sunlike stars to study, it has been difficult to assess just how typical the current conditions are. Also, isolated solar twins would be prime candidates for extensive searches for planetary systems more nearly like our own...and perhaps searches for life as well! January 28, 1999 One of the key ingredients long predicted by modern theories of the Sun's magnetic field is that it is generated within or below the convecting regions of the Sun, just below its surface. In a recent conference on 'Magnetic Helicity in Space and Laboratory Plasmas' reported in the American Geophysical Union's EOS newsletter on January 12, physicists discussed how measurements of solar magnetic helicity or 'twist' reveals has begun to confirm at least some of these theoretical expectations. Helioseismology, a technique which can probe the deep interior of the Sun, has revealed a boundary between the convecting regions and the deeper 'radiative' regions. Magnetic fields generated there should still have the imprint in them of the cyclonic twisting motions present in the streaming flows of plasma in this boundary layer as the gases make their way to the surface. As long ago as the 1950's Physicist Eugene Parker predicted that 'cyclonic convection' is one of the key ingredients responsible for generating the magnetic field of the Sun. By studying the twistiness of 'helicity' of the Sun's magnetic field, the details of how this process works may at long last be coming to light. January 22, 1999 A NASA sounding rocket designed to study aurora blasted off from the Andoya rocket range in Norway on January 20. The Cleft Accelerated Plasma Experiment Rocket (CAPER) carried an experiment package to altitudes of 1360 kilometers, carrying them through several auroral arcs and regions where electrons are being accelerated by powerful electric fields. Of particular interest was its passage through the 'Cleft Polar Fountain' region where atoms of oxygen and nitrogen from our atmosphere are being 'pumped' by solar activity into the magnetosphere. Scientists are still not sure of exactly what energy source or sources are driving the fountain. It is hoped that by studying the 20 minutes worth of data from CAPER that some new clues will emerge to solve this mystery. More information about this can be found at the NASA Space News page for January 7, 1999. January 21, 1999 More Good News! Thanks to the fact that Jupiter and Saturn orbit so far from the Sun, our Sun does not suffer from 'superflares' the way that other sun-like stars seem to. Yale University astronomer Bradley Schafer announced their findings at the American Astronomical Society January convention based on studies of so-called superflaring stars. These stars occasionally produce monster flares up to 10 million times more deadly than any flares produced by the Sun in the last 100 years. These flares are similar to what astronomers have long-detected in certain binary star systems, however, nine sun-like stars studied by the Yale team had no other stellar companions. Their conclusion is that these lone stars may have Jupiter-sized planets with similar magnetic fields orbiting near them, and that superflares are triggered by the interaction of the planetary and stellar magnetic fields. Schafer now advocates searching for isolated Sun-like, superflaring stars as prime candidates for identifying new planets similar in size to Jupiter. They also propose that the reason why the Sun does not produce superflares is that Jupiter and Saturn are just too far away from the Sun to trigger the process. Detailed computer modeling is now in progress to track down exactly how superflares are produced. January 10, 1999 Good News and Bad News. First, the Deep Space 1 mission with its futuristic ion space engine has been a resounding success. After 300+ hours of continuous operation the spacecraft's speed has been increased an additional 500 km/hour using only 2.5 kilograms of xenon fuel. NASA now considers this engine flight-qualified, and ready to be used on any future deep space missions that can benefit from its unique capabilities. At the same time DS1 is breaking records by using its fuel frugally, the SOHO solar observatory has fallen upon hard times again. Following what was to be a routine 'momentum-management' maneuver on December 21, SOHO's last working gyroscope failed. Since then, NASA has maintained contact with this $1.3 billion spacecraft by placing it in a temporary pointing mode that consumes 7 kilograms of fuel each day. With a reserve of only 180 kilograms, SOHO may run out of fuel for maintaining its orbit within 25 weeks. Engineers are working on several contingency plans including a 'reaction motor wheels mode' that should substantially improve SOHO's chances of lasting through the year. Meanwhile, in a race against time, it continues to return scientific data of the solar surface as the Sun continues its ascent to its most active years in the current sunspot cycle. December 22, 1998,According to the latest issue of EOS newsletter published by the American Geophysical Union, a series of new findings about aurora and the ionosphere make it clear that the ionosphere plays an active role in causing auroral displays. Researchers in the United States and Japan using the POLAR and EXOS D satellites, confirmed that intense aurora happen more frequently at nighttime than in daytime. The enhanced electrical conductivity of the ionosphere during the daytime caused by solar UV radiation, suppresses the mechanisms needed to produce aurora. The current explanation for this is that the highly conducting daytime ionosphere provided additional, and lower resistance, pathways for the electron currents which trigger auroral displays. In essence, the ionosphere provides a short-circuit to these auroral electron currents. December 15, 1998, The data from over a dozen satellites were used by space scientists to crack the mystery of how particles in the Earth's Van Allen radiation belts are accelerated to high energies. Previously, scientists presumed that the solar wind itself was the main location for accelerating these particles. At the recent American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco, investigators with the the International Solar-Terrestrial Program described how, within minutes, the geomagnetic field can become compressed by impacts from coronal mass ejections, and how this compression causes the acceleration inside the magnetosphere of the Earth. For more details, visit the ISTP newsroom. December 8, 1998, Scientists with the Mars Global Surveyor program have announced that during 400 low-altitude passes over the surface of Mars, the satellite has mapped out the surprisingly irregular martian magnetic field. Unlike the Earth's which is a smooth 'bar magnet', the martian field seems to be concentrated in strongly magnetized 'clumps' near the surface. A surprising feature of the small portion of the field mapped by the satellite, is that it has a pattern of magnetization nearly identical to what geologists have found in the Atlantic Ridge on the Earth. This leads geologists to the conclusion that continental drift has occurred on Mars from a spreading center near the locations mapped by the satellite; the first evidence for a major continent-forming process on another planet besides the Earth. the presentation was given at the December 1998 American Geophysical Union annual conference by Dr. Arden Albee, Project Scientist for the Mars Global Surveyor. December 7, 1998, For the first time ever, scientists have measured oxygen and other ions flowing out of the Earth's atmosphere in response to a coronal mass ejection from the Sun. Using instruments on NASA's POLAR and WIND satellites, they detected that the flow of the 'polar wind' increased as a CME hit the Earth on September 25, 1998. The rapidly changing pressure from the solar wind pumped the ions out of the ionosphere and into the surrounding trapped radiation belts around the Earth. This also helps explain why it is that the van Allen radiation belts have the elemental composition of the Earth's atmosphere, and not the hydrogen-rich plasma from the Sun. Evidently, the source of the van Allen belts is the Earth's own atmospheric particles, not atoms from the solar wind. The research was presented by Dr. Thomas Moore, head of the Goddard Space Flight Center Interplanetary Physics Branch. Details may be found in Press Briefings at the American Geophysical Union as part of their December 1998 conference in San Francisco. November 18, 1998, The Leonid Meteor came and went, and at this time there are no reports of any satellite outages caused by the potential impacts by micrometeoroids. The news media reported that commercial, military and research satellite owners began taking precautions prior to the storm onset on November 17th, such as minimizing satellite cross-sections by pointing solar panels into the stream. We can't know if these precautions prevented satellite damage, or whether they were unnecessary, but many agree that it was a very prudent step to take to protect nearly 600 satellites valued at over $20 billion. A Washington Post article on November 17,1998 by Terry Knight mentioned that Intelsat engineer Lee Kehl noted voltage spikes from electrostatic discharges near 1,600 volts while normal levels are typically near 25-50 volts from non-Leonid micrometeoroids. November 6, 1998, The Leonid Meteor Shower is not usually newsworthy for Sun-Earth space science, except that for the upcoming shower on November 17-18, it may have impacts that extend far beyond a pleasant sky show. Astronomers predict that the Earth will plow through the rubble from Comet Tempel-Tuttle at 2:20 PM EST on November 17 with about 200 to 5,000 meteors viewable in an hour. Unfortunately, North American viewers will be out of luck during this early afternoon event. They may be able to see some enhanced meteor activity during the pre-sunrise hours of November 17, and in the late evening hours of November 18. Viewers in Asia will have the best nighttime viewing of this 'storm' which reoccurs every 33 years. The last major one was in 1966. This time, however, we have considerable satellite real estate to worry about and a number of satellites are being put in various 'safe' modes. The Hubble Space Telescope will interrupt its busy research schedule and for 250 minutes be pointed so that its solar panels will face perpendicular to the stream which will also turn its mirror aperture away from the stream as well. Although the probability is only about 0.1 percent that a given satellite will be hit, there are over 650 satellites in space, so the odds are pretty good that at least one of them will experience a strike. The micrometeoroids will be smaller than the head of a pin, but traveling at 70 km/sec they will flash into a ball of plasma when they strike a spacecraft. This plasma pulse can leak into sensitive electronics and potentially disable a satellite. This happened in 1993 to an ESA satellite which temporarily spun out of control when a micrometeoroid from the Perseid Shower impacted the satellite. A major conference on the Leonid Shower was held this year, with participants from all the major commercial and military satellite owners, who have taken this threat very seriously indeed. Meanwhile, keep watching the news reports for the impact of the Leonid Storm. If your pager suddenly goes out of service, you might give some thought to the Leonids! November 2, 1998, During the same week that STS-95 was launched, over 100 space scientists convened at the New Millennium Magnetosphere Workshop in Guntersville, Alabama to discuss the future of geospace research. Bob Hoffman, Project Scientist for the International Solar and Terrestrial Program, discussed how the POLAR and SOHO satellites have already met their planned goals and are now in their extended operating phase with a 65% lower annual budget, "The best days are now past". The year 2000 budget shows a further 25% reduction in their operating budgets during their extended operating phase which can be terminated at any time by NASA. The ISTP satellites are still operating and returning a staggering amount of valuable scientific data. The SOHO satellite has even received a stunning operational reprieve and is working at nearly 100% of its pre- accident status. Despite their continued operation, these satellites will probably have to be 'turned off' to make room for other, more ambitious, research programs. One of these, the IMAGE satellite, will be the first generation of magnetosphere plasma 'imagers' and will replace many earlier satellites which only made far-flung, local measurements of the Earth's space environment. More ambitious satellite constellations such as the Magnetosphere Multi-scale Mission will have over 100 satellites weighing less than 10 kilograms each, that will provide a tomographic picture of the entire magnetosphere from scales of a few hundred kilometers to tens of thousands of kilometers. November 1, 1998, The launch of the STS-95 Space Shuttle mission brought with it into orbit a very distinguished passenger who was soon thrown overboard... Spartan 201. This solar observatory has two telescopes that will study the Sun's corona using a coronagraph and an ultraviolet spectrometer. By comparing the data collected by the two complimentary telescopes, observations by the Ulysses satellite, and ground- based instruments, scientists expect to gain a better understanding of just how the solar wind is produced in the solar coronal regions. October 26, 1998, The Deep Space 1 spacecraft was launched on Saturday, October 24 and carries with it the first Ion Propulsion Engine. This 'Star Trek' technology has been used on satellites, but now NASA will embark on a new age by using it in future interplanetary missions. Although the xenon ions travel at 100,000 km/hr, they only produce 0.020 pounds of thrust. The Ion Engine, however, will maintain this thrust for nearly a year and raise the spacecraft velocity to to nearly 50,000 km/hr from its present speed of 39,600 km/hr. The first tests of the Ion Engine are scheduled for early November. October 20, 1998, According to space physicist Dan Baker and his collegues at University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Research, the recent failure of the $200 million Galaxy IV communication satellite may have been caused by a prolonged period of disturbed geomagnetic conditions. During the weeks prior to the May 19 satellite failure when 45 million pagers ceased to operate in North America, a variety of NASA data sets show the geospace environment in an active state, with higher than normal fluxes of highly- relativistic electrons (HREs). These HREs were spawned by a series of massive coronal mass ejections on the Sun between May 2 and May 6. Prolonged periods of enhanced HREs have been directly implicated in numerous 'satellite anomalies' during the last few decades. Their report, published in the October 6, 1998 issue of the American Geophysical Union's EOS newspaper, is one of many similar studies which have identified connections between 'mysterious' satellite failures and enhanced solar storm and geomagnetic activity. October 14, 1998, High-quality images of the Sun are once again being received by NASA from the SOHO solar observatory. Nine of the twelve instruments have been successfully reactivated, and the remaining 3 will be turned on in the next few weeks. Engineers are still carefully working on 5 instruments to make certain that they are not damaged during their recommissioning. So far, there has been no sign of damage due to the instrument's having endured nearly 3 months of thermal cycling as they alternately were in and out of the Sun's direct glare. Over 2 million images of the Sun had been returned to scientists up until a bad command sent the satellite into a near-lethal state on July 23. Scientists are optimistic that nearly full use of the satellite may commence by the end of November. October 8, 1998, Over 3,000 homing pigeons worth $100.00 a piece have mysteriously disappeared during a series of three races held in Allentown, PA, Pittsburg, PA and Buffalo, NY over the course of 2 days beginning on Saturday. "There is something in the air" lamented one of the racers. UFOs? El Nino? No one really knows just how the pigeons do what they do. Some have said solar storms and geomagnetic effects disorient pigeons, but for decades, no scientific studies have indisputably shown that pigeons have the necessary 'magnetic compass' built into their anatomy the way that certain bacteria do. Meanwhile, some of the pigeons have begun to show up as far away as Ohio according to a report in the Washington Post. October 5, 1998, The remaining scientific value of the ill-fated SOHO solar observatory will be assessed in a series of tests by mid-November, according to project scientist Dr. Joseph Gurman at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Although the satellite is now under full command by ground controllers, tests of the 12 solar observing instruments during the next 5 to 6 weeks will tell us whether there is any point in continuing to use this satellite for research purposes. Two of its three gyros are known to have been damaged during the June 24 pointing error which will have, of itself, significant repercussions for maintaining proper pointing on the Sun while images are being formed by the instruments. Meanwhile, a new NASA satellite called TRIANA may receive the go-ahead for construction. Some of the proposed TRIANA instruments will include replacements for the SOHO instruments which have proved to be so invaluable in studying solar activity. September 30, 1998, A powerful burst of gamma-ray energy struck the Earth on August 27 and for 5 minutes transformed the night time ionosphere into the normally very noisy day time ionosphere according to Stanford scientists. The cause was later tracked down to a distant object called a Soft Gamma Repeater located 20,000 light years from Earth and previously cataloged as SGR1900+14. Its powerful 1,000 trillion Gauss magnetic field had caused a 'star quake' and a small fraction of the energy from this quake, on an object less than 30 miles across, traveled 1/2 way across the Milky Way and struck the Earth. Although auroras were sighted at about the same time, they were related to a previous solar storm which had arrived at the Earth at nearly the same time on August 27. Astronomers calculate that had the SGR been at the distance of the moon, all magnetic media ( credit cards, hard drives, tapes) would have been erased by the SGRs powerful magnetic field. Also, space-walking astronauts would have received an additional chest X-ray's worth of radiation, but had the Sun been only 0.1 light year closer to SGR1900+14, the gamma ray blast would have been lethal. September 29, 1998, The US Air Force and NOAA have announced a powerful magnetic storm and auroral display that began at 6:00 PM CST, on September 24, with effects that have been observed as far as Milwaukee. The Earth's magnetopause which is normally located at 65,000 kilometers from the Earth, has been compressed to 35,000 kilometers. The orbits of geosynchronous communication satellites is at 42,000 kilometers so some effect upon some of these satellites may occur. August 31, 1998, Following the successful reestablishment of contact with the NASA/ESA billion-dollar Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) ground controllers have been able to carefully establish the state of its onboard systems and begin the process of altering its orientation and spin rate so that its solar panels face the sun long enough to fully charge its batteries. Through a series of 20-hour charging cycles and 75-hour heating cycles, engineers have now been able to heat the hydrazine propellant tank to +10 C to thaw the fuel so that it can be used to operate the spacecraft thrusters. During a second stage in this operation scheduled for August 29-30, the hydrazine pipelines will be thawed as well. When completed, the thrusters will be carefully commanded through a series of carefully timed discharges, to slow the spinning satellite and to reorient its solar panels sunward so that the batteries can be fully charged. The current health and operability of its many scientific sensors and imaging devices is still not fully known. SOHO REACQUIRED! August 3, 1998 The NASA Deep Space Network reestablished contact with the wayward SOHO satellite which had been running-silent since June 25, 6 weeks earlier. "This is an excellent sign" Said Dr. Joe Gurman, NASA SOHO Project Scientist. As of August 6, the Deep Space Network was receiving 10 second bursts of 'carrier signal' from SOHO as the satellite continued to spin, causing a cyclic change in its solar power. Mission engineers are now sending a very controlled series of commands to the satellite to charge its batteries and stabilize its orientation for what is hoped will be a 'hard lock' on the full carrier signal, and the resumption of its mission, in perhaps a few months or less. The fact that even this limited reception was received increases the odds substantially that long-term damage of the spacecraft from cooling and thermal cycling can be reduced, and normal satellite functions can be recovered." For more information, visit the SOHO Home page at http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov