Cosmic Rays & CME's: the bad and surprisingly, the good!

[Suzy]

This very interesting article was originally posted today by Camilla Sdo (Solar Dynamic Observatory) & re-posted by Michelle Thaller (facebook friends of mine), on solar storms and its effects on astronauts.

Apparently there is an upside too- CME's can actually be a good thing if you're in space at the time...

During solarstorms, something strange happens onboard the International Space Station (ISS): radiation levels drop.
"The crew of the ISS absorbed about 30% fewer cosmic rays than usual,"

The reason is simple: When sunspots explode, they often hurl massive clouds of hot gas away from the sun. These clouds, called CMEs (coronal mass ejections), contain not only gas but also magnetic force fields, knots of magnetism ripped away from the sun by the explosion. Magnetic fields deflect charged particles, so when .....

Quote from Michelle ...

An astronaut friend of mine told me that they get little flashes of light in their eyes when cosmic rays come through. A very personal experience of solar weather...

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...type=1&theater

[steve000 (Steve)]

They almost canned the Apollo missions cause of these flashes.

[Erg]

Phosphenes.

To echo Steves comment...Initially wasnt this one of those things that Astronauts used to keep to themselves for fear of getting cut from the rotation before it became more widley known?

A similar thing to the first sightings of Elves, Sprites and other high altitude phenomena by test pilots.

"Dont tell and we get to keep flying"??

Id love to hear more about this from people in the know.

Erg

[astroron (Ron)]

Great Post Suzy,
A friend who used to be a professional Astronomer and worked at the Space telescope Science Institute told me about the Cosmic Rays problems for the Astronauts and also the Telescope many years ago
Maybe in the future besides planning the trips to the planets and beyond at Solar maximum, they may be able to build a Magnetic Field as a shield for the space craft ?
Don't ask me how as I wouldn't have a clue
I think space craft of the future will be very large and so being could have the energy source required to make this happen
Cheers