Radar studies of the solar system...
I found an article on using SOHO to predict solar storms within an hour of onset.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080219-soho-radiation.html
(Of course, I liked this article for the following quote: SOHO, launched in 1995, has been near death more than once, but clever engineers, working with the equivalent of electronic duct tape and more than a dash of luck, have kept it running well beyond its expected lifetime.)
I read an article in one of the IEEE journals about some research that the Navy was proposing on this. I seem to remember that some folks from Lincoln Labs (maybe) had taken a bunch of radar cross section data of the sun in the 60s and 70s. The project was shut down after about a decade. Now the NRL folks are going back and saying that radar may be a useful tool for characterizing and predicting solar storm onset, particularly when they involve coronal mass ejections (the really big storms).
(Unfortunately, I can't find anything after 2003 when they were proposing the project, so I don't know if it ever went anywhere.)
I wonder how the two methods compare. The article about SOHO seems to indicate that there is an hour between the forecast and event. However, I got the impression that the Navy folks could tell a lot farther ahead of time than that. Electromagnetic waves take 16 minutes to travel to the sun and back from earth. I think they need 2-3 samples to tell for sure, so they could potentially tell within a half hour of a flare event if it was heading toward earth, it's velocity, etc.
Of course, RCS may have a lack of resolution, making it hard to tell precise details about storm onset. You also have to have a very large radar constantly pointing at the sun...which I don't know that they do at this point because the previously used facility was dismantled. On the other hand, if SOHO doesn't last much longer, the method requiring it's use may not be horribly useful unless they launch another satellite.
Speaking of radar, NASA has a cool video of some radar imagine done of the south polar region of the moon. But if you want to know what's underneath the lunar surface, you'll have to talk to these guys. (Incidentally, one of them is the same person who was proposing looking at solar radar reflections, mentioned above, which is how I found it. The NASA one just landed in my box a few days ago.)
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080219-soho-radiation.html
(Of course, I liked this article for the following quote: SOHO, launched in 1995, has been near death more than once, but clever engineers, working with the equivalent of electronic duct tape and more than a dash of luck, have kept it running well beyond its expected lifetime.)
I read an article in one of the IEEE journals about some research that the Navy was proposing on this. I seem to remember that some folks from Lincoln Labs (maybe) had taken a bunch of radar cross section data of the sun in the 60s and 70s. The project was shut down after about a decade. Now the NRL folks are going back and saying that radar may be a useful tool for characterizing and predicting solar storm onset, particularly when they involve coronal mass ejections (the really big storms).
(Unfortunately, I can't find anything after 2003 when they were proposing the project, so I don't know if it ever went anywhere.)
I wonder how the two methods compare. The article about SOHO seems to indicate that there is an hour between the forecast and event. However, I got the impression that the Navy folks could tell a lot farther ahead of time than that. Electromagnetic waves take 16 minutes to travel to the sun and back from earth. I think they need 2-3 samples to tell for sure, so they could potentially tell within a half hour of a flare event if it was heading toward earth, it's velocity, etc.
Of course, RCS may have a lack of resolution, making it hard to tell precise details about storm onset. You also have to have a very large radar constantly pointing at the sun...which I don't know that they do at this point because the previously used facility was dismantled. On the other hand, if SOHO doesn't last much longer, the method requiring it's use may not be horribly useful unless they launch another satellite.
Speaking of radar, NASA has a cool video of some radar imagine done of the south polar region of the moon. But if you want to know what's underneath the lunar surface, you'll have to talk to these guys. (Incidentally, one of them is the same person who was proposing looking at solar radar reflections, mentioned above, which is how I found it. The NASA one just landed in my box a few days ago.)