Kartavya Kant Tiwari

A potential new solar sail-powered satellite mission is offering an extended early warning of extreme space weather events to safely shut down the most vulnerable pieces of our tech -- without waiting for them to fail mid-activity and then figuring out why. Going far beyond Earth in the traditional sense of this type of satellite, the solar sail spacecraft would provide almost 20 more minutes of warning time (up to about 60 minutes total) before some very dangerous geomagnetic storms. These eruptions, called coronal mass ejections, cause space weather events that can disrupt satellites, damage power grids, and expose astronauts to cosmic radiation through the ability to ground high-altitude commercial flights. The better the predictions, the more time for critical systems to respond, so overall it is supposed to work out. Solar Sail Mission SWIFT Aims to Boost Space Weather Forecasting from Beyond L1 Point According to a report published by The Conversation and contributed to Space.com...