Space Weather: The Solar Perspective
Living Reviews in Solar Physics
View Archive Info| Field | Value | |
| Title |
Space Weather: The Solar Perspective
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| Subject |
Sun-Earth Connection
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| Identifier |
http://www.livingreviews.org/lrsp-2006-2
doi:10.12942/ |
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| Date |
2006-08-09
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| Description |
The term space weather refers to conditions on the Sun and in the solar wind, magnetosphere, ionosphere, and thermosphere that can influence the performance and reliability of space-borne and ground-based technological systems and that can affect human life and health. Our modern hi-tech society has become increasingly vulnerable to disturbances from outside the Earth system, in particular to those initiated by explosive events on the Sun: Flares release flashes of radiation that can heat up the terrestrial atmosphere such that satellites are slowed down and drop into lower orbits, solar energetic particles accelerated to near-relativistic energies may endanger astronauts traveling through interplanetary space, and coronal mass ejections are gigantic clouds of ionized gas ejected into interplanetary space that after a few hours or days may hit the Earth and cause geomagnetic storms. In this review, I describe the several chains of actions originating in our parent star, the Sun, that affect Earth, with particular attention to the solar phenomena and the subsequent effects in interplanetary space.
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| Format |
text/html
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| Language |
en
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| Source |
Living Reviews in Solar Physics
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| Type |
Review Article
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| Rights |
Max Planck Society and the author(s)
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