Wednesday, April 10, 2019

Harmful killer electrons in space now accurately predictable.

Phys.org: New model accurately predicts harmful space weather.
A new, first-of-its-kind space weather model reliably predicts space storms of high-energy particles that are harmful to many satellites and spacecraft orbiting in the Earth's outer radiation belt.
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...the model can accurately give a one-day warning prior to a space storm of ultra-high-speed electrons, often referred to as "killer" electrons because of the damage they can do to spacecraft such as navigation, communications, and weather monitoring satellites.
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"...being able to accurately predict space weather has been a goal for a long time. This model is a firm step towards being able to do that," [said Yue Chen, a space scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and lead author of the study].
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"The more research and refinements we do, the increased potential for us to have more reliable forecasts with longer warning time before the arrival of new killer electrons," [said Chen].

Democrats in the U.S. Senate and House quickly condemned the Los Alamos study calling the identification and profiling of "killer electrons" as killer-electron-phophia and declaring it a humanitarian crisis.

Killer electrons...still not as scary as these guys.

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