How Long Will Our Sun Remain Quiet and Cosmic Rays Increase?

“We don’t have records prior to 1874 that give us details about the sun. Compared to the past 130 years, our sun now is unprecedented as far as how slow this Solar Cycle 24 is taking off - or not taking off!”

- David Hathaway, Ph.D., NASA Heliospheric Team Leader

NASA'S Advanced Composition Explorer satellite (ACE) launched August 1997 to study solar particles and galactic cosmic rays. It has nine instruments onboard that helps it track solar wind and galactic cosmic rays from interstellar space beyond the heliosphere. ACE serves as a space weather station while in orbit. ACE can provide a one-hour advance warning of any geomagnetic storms that are caused by coronal mass ejections. Strong solar coronal mass ejections can disrupt radio, TV and telephone communications on Earth. Logo by NASA.

October 30, 2009 Huntsville, Alabama - For twelve years, NASA has had a satellite positioned a million miles in front of Earth with the sun about 92 million miles beyond. Its mission has been to study particles that come near Earth from our sun, the solar system and the galaxy. The satellite is called Advanced Composition Explorer, or ACE, and some of the highly energetic particles ACE has been monitoring are cosmic rays.

Click here to subscribe and get instant access to read this report.

Click here to check your existing subscription status.

Existing members, login below: