Intense Space Weather Storms Spark Satellite Failures
by Megan Gannon, News Editor | September 16, 2013 03:30pm ET
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 Sunspot AR1748 erupted with a medium-class M3.2 flare on May 17, 2013.Credit: NASA/SDO |
High-speed streams of charged particles from the sun may be to blame for recent failures of satellites that people rely on to watch TV and use the Internet, a new study finds.
From 93 million miles away, the sun spawns solar flares, coronal mass ejections and other space weather events, which can send highly energized particles racing toward Earth. Some solar storms have been known to disrupt communications systems and damage satellites.
To better understand these disturbances, a team of MIT researchers investigated the space weather conditions at the time of 26 failures in eight geostationary satellites operated by the London-based company Inmarsat. Geostationary satellites orbit at the same rate as the Earth’s rotation, meaning they always hover above the same location on the planet. [Stunning Photos of Solar Flares & Sun Storms]
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