Solar Storm MAY Disrupt Communications, Power
Wednesday, April 09, 1997 9:42:00 AM EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuter) - A large storm on the sun's surface probably will hit the earth's magnetic field Wednesday with the potential to disrupt communications satellites and power grids, NASA said.
``It's clearly a big event,'' said Don Savage, a spokesman for NASA's Office of Space Science. A large solar flare was blamed for the destruction of a broadcast satellite in January.
Savage said matter blown off the face of the sun -- essentially a stream of ionized particles -- was expected to strike a ``glancing blow'' to the magnetic field that shields the Earth more than 100 miles from its surface.
He said those who operate sensitive satellites and power grids had been warned to take unspecified steps to safeguard their operations through an established early-warning system that reports ``space weather.''
The solar storm was detected a couple of days ago by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, a satellite that NASA and the European Space Agency launched in 1995 to keep a constant eye on the sun's surface.
Savage said scientists still were calculating the precise arrival time of the solar impact, which was likely to produce a shimmering curtain of multi-colored light called an aurora over the North and South poles.
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