A spacecraft that sails on light could provide new vantage point on solar eruptions that can disrupt modern electrical and navigation systems.
A spacecraft that sails on light could provide new vantage point on solar eruptions that can disrupt modern electrical and navigation systems.
Spirals of solar wind can spin off larger solar eruptions and disrupt Earth’s magnetic field, yet they are too difficult to detect with our current single-location warning system, according to a new study from the University of Michigan.
But a constellation of spacecraft, including one that sails on sunlight, could help find the tornado-like features in time to protect equipment on Earth and in orbit.
The study results come from computer simulations of a massive cloud of plasma erupting from the sun and moving through the solar system. Because the simulation covers features that span distances three times Earth’s diameter down to thousands of miles, the researchers could determine how smaller, tornado-like spirals of plasma and magnetic field—called flux ropes—become concerning features in their own right.
Read More: University of Michigan
Image: An artist’s rendering of the spacecraft in the SWIFT constellation stationed in a triangular pyramid formation between the sun and Earth. A solar sail allows the spacecraft at the pyramid’s tip to hold station beyond L1 without conventional fuel. Image credit: Steve Alvey, University of Michigan.
