Space Scientist Pål Brekke
‘Solar Flares and Storms: Should Our Technology-Based Society be Concerned?’
The Norwegian Space Agency (Norsk Romsenter)
Tuesday, October 22
The Special Events Committee has the pleasure of inviting you to the Norwegian Space Agency for a fascinating lecture on solar flares and storms and how they affect our technology-based society. The lecture will be illustrated with pictures and photos.
The Sun – which is the source of life on Earth and photosynthesis in plants and living creatures – appears to the naked eye to be a static and glowing yellow disc in the sky. However, it is a stormy star, expelling flares, creating Northern Lights, and influencing space weather that has a direct impact on our daily lives.
The magnetic field of large active regions on the Sun often becomes unstable and can result in violent explosions in the solar atmosphere called ‘flares.’ These eruptions, if directed toward the Earth, can disrupt telephone and data signals of revolving spatial satellites, affect electric currents in power cables, compasses, radiation inside airplanes, and GPS navigation for civil and military systems, interrupt radio communication, increase corrosion in pipelines, and knock out ATM and bank services, to mention a few alarming consequences.
To help explain the disruptive consequences of powerful solar flares, space scientist Pål Brekke from the Norwegian Space Agency (NOSA) – who earlier spoke to us about the Northern Lights – will explain how these can affect our daily lives.