gpronger's Journal: NASA's STEREO Forecasts Solar Storms

"NASA's "Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory" satellite system or STEREO will allow NASA to determine when a CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) is directed towards Earth and cause a geomagnetic storm (sometimes called solar storm).

On the aesthetic-side, a CME causes Northern and Southern Lights; or it can cause disruption and damage to communication systems and orbiting satellites.The most energetic geomagnetic storm on record occurred in 1859 which had sufficient energy to cause the "State-of-the-Art" in , 1859 telegraph systems, to short out and start electrical fires. An equivalent storm today would cause massive disruption in communication and electronic based systems.

STEREO was launched in 2006 and is composed of two satellites, which lead and trail the Earth's solar orbit. The satellites take simultaneous solar measurements, and can therefore offer a true three dimensional measurement of solar activity. From this data, the direction, speed, etc., is calculated allowing the prediction of the potential impact on the Earth's magnetic field.

In the NASA article, Angelos Vourlidas, stated; "Before this unique mission, measurements and the subsequent data of a CME observed near the sun had to wait until the ejections arrived at Earth three to seven days later. Now we can see a CME from the time it leaves the solar surface until it reaches Earth, and we can reconstruct the event in 3D directly from the images." Vourlidas is a solar physicist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington.