Small Earthquakes May Cause Surprisingly Big Tsunamis

Mysterious small tremors in the most earthquake-prone areas on Earth may be the cause of surprisingly large tsunamis, researchers say.

These findings might also shed light on the huge tsunami generated by the disastrous magnitude 9.0 quake that hit Japan in 2011.

Nearly all of the 10 largest recorded earthquakes on Earth happened along subduction zones, where one of the tectonic plates making up the planet's surface is diving beneath another. The shallow regions of these zones are often not seismically active by themselves, but occasionally strange tremors are recorded from these locales that are rich in very-low-frequency seismic waves.
These shallow areas also seem to be home to so-called tsunami earthquakes, which generate tsunamis far stronger than one would expect for the amount of seismic energy they release. The Keicho quake of 1605 that caused disastrous tsunamis in Japan and killed thousands might have been one such earthquake.
To see if there were any links between the very-low-frequency events and tsunami earthquakes seen in the shallows of subduction zones, scientists in Japan used three ocean-bottom seismometers to analyze a swarm of very-low-frequency events in 2009. These occurred in the shallowest parts of the Nankai Trough, a part of a subduction zone near southwestern Japan that is rocked by giant earthquakes every century or so — most recently in 1946, when a magnitude 8.2 event killed an estimated 1,300 people.

The researchers discovered that the very-low-frequency quakes — ranging from magnitudes of 3.8 to 4.9 — can last 30 to 100 seconds. This is unusually long when compared with the 1-to-2 second duration of ordinary earthquakes with comparable magnitudes.
Although these very-low-frequency quakes get their name from seismic waves detected on land, the researchers discovered these events are actually rich in high-frequency waves as well. High-frequency waves tend to weaken with distance as they go through matter, which is why land seismometers did not detect these waves but ocean seismometers closer to the quakes did. The long duration of the quakes and the high-frequency waves now seen from them suggest these events may be caused by fluid seeping into fractures in the rock, making it easier for parts of the earth to slip past each other and generate tsunami earthquakes.
These findings suggest that authorities should keep a closer eye on the shallow areas of subduction zones. For instance, the huge tsunamis generated by the magnitude 9.0 quake that struck Japan in 2011 might be due in significant part to a slip in the shallow parts of the Japan Trench lying east of the country's main island.

"It is very important for us to monitor continuously seismic activities close to the trench," researcher Hiroko Sugioka, a seismologist at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology at Yokosuka, told OurAmazingPlanet. "It is mitigation against unexpectedly large tsunami disasters."

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White Dwarfs Are Eating 'Earth-like' Planets for Dinner

There is one doomsday scenario that will, without a doubt, come true.
In 4-5 billion years time, when the sun runs out of fuel, it will become a bloated red giant star. During this violent phase, it will blowtorch the Earth before shedding huge quantities of mass and disintegrating into a planetary nebula. A tiny white dwarf star will remain -- the remnant of our sun's core -- with the dust cloud of pulverized inner solar system planets raining down onto it.
Now, using data from the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers from the University of Warwick have discovered four white dwarf stars containing dust in their atmospheres, giving us a rare glimpse into the future death of our own solar system.
 Although dusty white dwarfs are a well-known astronomical phenomenon -- the extreme tidal shear and dynamical instability produced by a white dwarf will pulverize planetary bodies in orbit through a demolition derby of epic proportions -- these four new examples may be what our solar system will look like in a few billion years time.

In each case, the researchers have detected oxygen, magnesium, iron and silicon hanging in their stellar atmospheres. The presence of these elements are a telltale sign that rocky worlds used to exist in orbit. Interestingly, these four elements make up the composition of approximately 93 percent of the Earth.
In addition to these key elements is the detection of small quantities of carbon in proportions that closely match the proportion of carbon found inside the solar system's rocky planets. This is the first time such a proportion of carbon has been detected in the dusty debris surrounding white dwarfs.

Although the term "Earth-like" is often misrepresented in the field of exoplanetary studies, the Warwick astronomers are acutely aware of the implications of spotting these elements around distant stars. "What we are seeing today in these white dwarfs several hundred light-years away could well be a snapshot of the very distant future of the Earth," said lead researcher Boris Gänsicke.
Although we have little clue about the physical characteristics of the exoplanets before they were pulverized, all the components that make up the terrestrial planets -- Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and the asteroids -- are present in the white dwarfs' dust. The proportions of these elements are about as "Earth-like" as it gets.
There is one white dwarf, called PG0843+516, that stands out from the other three; it has an overabundance of iron, nickel and sulfur in its atmosphere. These particular elements are found in the cores of rocky planets. During planetary evolution, gravity pulls these elements into the core -- a process known as "differentiation." Differentiation will occur in large rocky worlds like Earth, forming a core, mantle, crust and, probably, tectonic activity.

Also, as the white dwarfs' gravity should consume these elements very quickly, the fact that they have been spotted in the star's atmosphere indicates a rocky planetary body is being ripped to shreds right now.
In all four white dwarfs, the researchers estimate 1 million kilograms of planetary material must be raining down into the stars every second. This is significant as they are witnessing the final stages of these star systems' death throes.
One can't help but wonder, if true "Earth-like" worlds are being pulverized and eaten by white dwarf stars, are the remnants of ancient extraterrestrial civilizations also being consumed?
This research has been accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Source: University of Warwick

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Yellowstone Supervolcano's Size Exceeds Expectations

Beneath Yellowstone National Park lurks a partially molten plume rising from the Earth's mantle, fueling the park's famous geysers and hot springs, and causing the crust above to bulge and recede in response to its forces.
Now researchers report that the source beneath the surface may be even more massive than previously thought. Using a new technique, they have created an image of the plume beneath Yellowstone showing the cyclone shape stretching at a 40-degree angle to the west at a depth of 200 miles for 400 miles east to west, as far as the new technique can reach.
This study does not make any predictions about future eruptions, which the USGS Yellowstone Volcano Observatory notes are of very low probability in any given millennium, since they have been separated in the past by 800,000 and 660,000 years.
When the Yellowstone supervolcano last erupted cataclysmically 640,000 years ago, it formed the Yellowstone Caldera, a 30 by 50 mile crater. Smaller, non-explosive eruptions have happened since, the most recent about 70,000 years ago.
Previous estimates of the plume have used seismic images, which measure the reflection of seismic waves from earthquakes off of different types of materials below the surface. They reached even deeper than the new images -- to more than 400 miles down.
The new method detects differences in electrical conductivity generated by the different types of rocks and minerals below Yellowstone National Park, which provides clues to what they are made of.
Using supercomputers, the research team, led by Michael Zhdanov of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, created images of the plume based on the electromagnetic measurements from 115 stations in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.
"We see that there is a partially melted, conductive plume at great depths starting in the mantle, and going up," Zhdanov said.
"It's a completely different technique, completely different data," he added. "It confirms that the plume is there, but it provides another view of the plume."
The plume's high conductivity suggests it contains high levels of silicate rocks and perhaps briny water, he said. The observation that the high conductivity plume is larger and angled differently than the one found with seismic imaging suggests that the plume of molten and partially molten rock may be surrounded by additional liquid including briny water, Zhdanov said.
"I think it's an important finding to have a new technique to corroborate the way that this hotspot is rising through the mantle," said Jake Lowenstern, USGS scientist in charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.
He noted that the finding does not indicate that the plume of molten material is necessarily bigger than earlier seismic images indicated, but that the plume's sphere of influence extends further than could be seen by the other technique. "You're looking at the effects of that plume but not necessarily the plume itself," he said.
"It doesn't have great effect on the actual risk from the much more shallow volcanic system," he added. While this plume provides the heat that ultimately reaches the surface, he said, with these new images, "you're looking at something that's way below the actual magma chamber that's responsible for the eruptions."

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8.6 Magnitude Earthquake Strikes North Sumatra

UPDATE (7:33 a.m. ET): An aftershock of magnitude 8.2 has struck at 16.4 km (10 miles) deep - at 617 km (383 miles) south southwest of the coast of Banda Aceh. We are continuing to monitor the situation. Follow sea level changes here.
A magnitude 8.6 earthquake struck North Sumatra, Indonesia, at 2:38 p.m. local time today. First estimated as a magnitude 8.7 by the U.S. Geological Survey, the earthquake originated 22.9 km (14.2 miles) below the Earth's crust and struck 434 kilometers (270 miles) southwest of the coast of Banda Aceh, the capital of Indonesia's Aceh province.

A tsunami watch and warning was put into effect for the Indian Ocean, immediately after the event. The power is out in Banda Aceh, where residents have moved to high ground, reported Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for the Indonesian National Disaster Management Agency.
The island of Simeulue, Prih Harjadi, and other coastal areas of Aceh are also on alert.
India has taken caution on Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where authorities have ordered people to move out of low-lying areas, CNN reported.
However the geophysics of today's quake do not indicate a repeat of Indonesia's 2004 earthquake is in progress. The magnitude 9.1 earthquake that struck in 2004 and triggered a tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people in 14 countries was a subduction megathrust earthquake closer to shore (250 kilometers south-southeast of Banda Aceh).
Today's temblor appears to have ripped along a transform fault, tearing the seafloor as opposed to popping it apart. Though local tsunami waves are a considerable risk, with calculations showing Simeulue could receive waves as high as 6 meters (20 feet) the widespread tsunami damage seen in 2004 is not anticipated.

IMAGES: Earthquake location map (USGS) Indian Ocean warning in effect (PTWC)

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Monster Solar Tornadoes Discovered

For the first time, huge solar tornadoes have been filmed swirling deep inside the solar corona -- the sun's superheated atmosphere. But if you're imagining the pedestrian tornadoes that we experience on Earth, think again.
These solar monsters, measuring the width of several Earths and swirling at speeds of up to 300,000 kilometers (190,000 miles) per hour, aren't only fascinating structures; they may also trigger violent magnetic eruptions that can have drastic effects on our planet.

In one example observed on Sept. 25, 2011, solar researchers from the UK used the high-definition cameras onboard NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) to track solar gases as hot as 2 million Kelvin (3.6 million degrees Fahrenheit) getting sucked from the bottom of a solar prominence and spiral high into the corona. The solar tornado then developed for three hours, gases traveling in spiral paths for around 200,000 kilometers (120,000 miles).
"Prominences are tangled magnetic fields trapping cold and dense plasma in the solar corona," Xing Li, solar physicist at Aberystwyth University, told Discovery News. "These often erupt spectacularly and fly out into space as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and large CMEs will impact our space weather and space technology in a significant way when they are heading toward the Earth.
"What drives these eruptions is still not clear and is very important to gain an understanding of CME initiation (so that we can possibly predict such events)."

As mankind becomes more dependent on sensitive technology, it is critical that we develop new and more sophisticated ways to predict the sun's next "temper tantrum." As it turns out, these twisted tornadoes may hold the key to predicting when the next CME will be launched.
"This unique and spectacular tornado must play a role in triggering global solar storms," said co-discoverer Huw Morgan, also at Aberystwyth University.

"These tornadoes may help to produce favorable conditions for CMEs to occur," Li added, pointing out that the tornadoes his team studied coincided with CME eruptions as observed by other instruments monitoring the wider corona.
Also, the tornadoes observed so far by Li and Morgan often occur at the root of where CMEs are initiated. As the dynamic structures wind-up magnetic fields and drag powerful electric currents high into the corona, these tornadoes could generate the conditions ripe for CME eruptions, they theorize.

But to observe the tornadoes in the first place requires a bit of luck.
Firstly, as they are magnetic structures, if the tornado is empty of radiating plasma, they will remain invisible. Only when hot plasma is being dragged high into the corona can they be seen. Conversely, should the tornado be completely flooded with plasma, you wouldn't see the motion of the material as the radiating plasma would be completely washed out.

Li highlights the need for discrete objects inside the swirling mass so they can be tracked as they move around the tornado. He likens this to the dust and bits of debris that a terrestrial tornado would pick up. Without these objects, we couldn't "see" the spinning wind currents. The same goes for solar tornadoes; discrete "blobs" of plasma can be tracked as they are accelerated and carried high into the corona by the tornado's magnetic field.
"Also, we believe that the angle you view the tornado from is important," Li added. "For example, if you imagine the slinky structure mentioned above, if you view it from the side it may not appear so clearly as a tornado."
In the past, observers have spotted prominences that they described as "tornadoes," but in the days before the SDO was launched, the necessary definition and rapid image capturing techniques simply weren't available.

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Fire and the Future of Yellowstone

download large image (5 MB, JPEG, 3274x3274)

acquired August 2, 1989 download GeoTIFF file (24 MB, TIFF) 

 The high mountain forests of western North America need fire. Fire returns nutrients to the soil and replaces old stands and ground debris with young forest. Intense fires are a characteristic of the conifer forests, though they occur infrequently—once every 100 to 300 years.
The year 1988 brought one of those infrequent, severe fires to Yellowstone National Park. Drought and high temperatures combined to create extreme fire conditions. Fifty wildfires ignited, seven of which grew into major wildfires. By the end of the year, 793,000 acres had burned.
These images, taken by the Landsat satellites, contrast 1989 and 2011. Burned land is deep red in the 1989 image. By 2011, more than two decades later, the scar faded to tan-orange, but it was still present. Year-to-year images are available in the Earth Observatory’s World of Change article, Burn Recovery in Yellowstone.
Immediately after the fire, grass flourished in the ash-rich soil, followed by young trees. The slender saplings were still not dense enough to hide the burn scar. As these images indicate, it takes many decades for a conifer forest to recover to pre-fire conditions.
Western conifers burn when temperatures are high and plants and soil are dry. Such conditions will come together more frequently as the climate changes over the next century, and fires are already becoming more frequent. A 2011 study combined several climate models to estimate how fire could change in the Yellowstone ecosystem. Yellowstone is near a tipping point, the researchers assert, as warmer, dryer conditions will likely allow large fires to burn as frequently as every 30 years.
When fires occur infrequently, the forest has time to recover. More frequent fires, however, give the conifers little time to grow back. If this occurs, Yellowstone could lose its dense conifer forests and replace them with low montane woodland and grassland by 2050.

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Is That The 'Death Star' Suckling on the Sun?

What was that planet-sized 'Death Star'-like structure seen floating near the surface of the sun on Monday? Although sightings of supposed UFOs in space images are nothing new, this particular orb appears to be refueling with solar plasma -- there's even a hose extending from the sun's surface!
 Anyone familiar with solar images will immediately recognize the filament extending from the surface of the sun into the sun's atmosphere (or corona) -- it's a solar prominence.


Prominences are very well-known structures in the corona. Although their formation is still the subject of intense scientific scrutiny, we know that they are clouds of cool plasma encapsulated in long tubes of magnetism. But 'cool' is a relative term.
Typically, prominences have been measured to be of chromospheric temperatures. The chromosphere -- a 2,000-kilometer thick region of the lower solar atmosphere that is sandwiched between the solar "surface" (the photosphere) and the multi-million degree corona -- can reach temperatures of up to 24,000 Kelvin (or degrees Celsius), and prominences have a similar temperature characteristic.
So why are they so dark when viewed by solar observatories?
When solar telescopes like NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) observe the sun, they do so through filters. These filters are able to select a certain wavelength of electromagnetic radiation. Each wavelength corresponds to a certain temperature -- generally higher temperatures produce radiation of shorter wavelengths. Therefore, the most powerful, hottest, solar flares may generate X-ray radiation (hence "X-class" flares), whereas the "quiet sun" (areas of the cool photosphere with little magnetic activity) generate longer wavelength radiation that we can see with our own eyes -- a.k.a. visible light.

The tenuous gas in the sun's corona is very hot, so when the SDO studies the corona, it uses a filter that is able to "see" the multi-million degree plasma emitting radiation in a specific point of the extreme-ultraviolet (or EUV) part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Therefore, should cooler plasma -- such as the plasma encased in a long prominence -- be observed inside the corona, it won't be emitting the same wavelength as the corona and will appear dark.
But what about the strange orb shape attached to the end of the prominence? That's actually a tunnel, or "coronal cavity," carved into the corona by the magnetic structure atop the prominence.
"When you look at it from the edge of the sun, what you actually see is a spherical object. You're actually looking down the tunnel. And this tunnel sits up top of the filament," NASA solar physicst C. Alex Young explained on his website The Sun Today.
  As we view the sun with more sophisticated space telescopes, our eyes are being opened to the incredible dynamics that connect the sun's interior to its atmosphere. And as this video shows, erupting coronal cavities can trigger the formation of CMEs. CMEs are the target for much scrutiny by space weather experts as they can have a dramatic impact on modern technology in space and on Earth, so understanding these features is paramount to predicting the sun's temper tantrums.

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Meteorite Punches Hole Through Oslo Shed

A Norwegian family was flabbergasted to find that what appeared to be a piece of a meteorite had crashed through the roof of their allotment garden hut in the middle of Oslo, media reported Monday.

The rock weighing 585 grams (1lb 4oz), which split in two, probably detached from a meteorite observed over Norway on March 1, experts said, and had landed on the empty hut in the Thomassen family's allotment in a working-class neighbourhood of the Norwegian capital.

Astrophysicist Knut Joergen Roed Oedegaard and his wife Anne Mette Sannes, a meteorite enthusiast, identified the object as a breccia, or a rock composed of broken fragments of minerals or rock.
"It is a sensation in more than one way. On one hand because it is rare that a piece of meteorite goes through a roof and on the other hand because it is a breccia, which is even harder to find," Sannes told AFP.
 She said the owners of the meteorite pieces wanted to keep them in Norway, maybe in a museum.

Meteorites speed through space and generally break up as they enter our atmosphere, but it is extremely rare for the debris to fall on inhabited areas, according to Serge Koutchmy, a researcher at the Paris Astrophysical Institute.

"This family is very lucky," Koutchmy told AFP.
"First off because the piece of meteorite did not cause much damage, but also because it is worth a small fortune," he said.
A meteorite from Mars, for instance, can fetch around 5,000 kroner ($876) per gram (0.002 pounds), according to geophysicist Hans Amundsen quoted on the website of the Verdens Gang daily, adding though that it remained unclear where the meteorite pieces that landed in Oslo came from and how rare they were.

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Nuking Asteroids: It's a Megaton Of Fun!

Asteroids: they're big, scary and can kill millions. Nuclear weapons: they're big, scary and can kill millions. Wouldn't it make sense to unite the two? Seems like a perfect match.
We've gone full circle more than once in the discussion about asteroid collision mitigation plans in recent years. The once sci-fi space rock disposal solution is becoming more sci-fact every time the ugly subject of errant space rocks is discussed. It's a "given" that if an incoming asteroid were to be spotted last-minute, we'd obviously need to launch our entire nuclear deterrent into space.

Unfortunately, there's a catch (actually, there's a few catches) with this plan:
1) What if we shot a nuke at an incoming asteroid and it was woefully weak compared to the structure of the asteroid? All we'd succeed in doing is turn the deadly asteroid into a radioactive deadly asteroid.
2) What if we shot a nuke at an incoming asteroid, the asteroid blew up, but there's enough time for the asteroid to reform under the mutual gravity of its debris? Well, that's not good either.
3) What if we shot a nuke at an incoming asteroid, the asteroid blew up, but now we have a thousand smaller chunks of the deadly asteroid racing toward us? Well, it would be like choosing between getting shot by a cosmic bullet, or cosmic buckshot. The former packs a bigger punch, while the latter blanket-bombs an entire hemisphere.
With all these "what if's" we'd be stupid to launch a nuclear weapon at an asteroid, right?

Well, despite the flaws, it turns out that going nuclear is probably still the 'best' option if we spotted an "on-target Apophis" tomorrow, and a group of scientists have been busy simulating this event.
In a January video from Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, scientists using the awesome power of 32,000 processors inside the Cielo supercomputer have simulated the impact of a 1-megaton nuclear explosion on the surface of a 500-meter wide asteroid.
Their conclusion is fabulous: Yes, a big boom can solve a big problem.
"Ultimately this 1-megaton blast will disrupt all of the rocks in the rockpile of this asteroid, and if this were an Earth-crossing asteroid, would fully mitigate the hazard represented by the initial asteroid itself," said Los Alamos scientist Bob Weaver.
Basically, by detonating this nuclear warhead on the surface of an asteroid like the one visited by the Japanese Hayabusa asteroid sample return mission, a shock wave will propagate through the "rubble pile" (the nickname given to asteroids composed of loose material clumped together via a weak gravitational field), disrupting the asteroid enough so it can be pushed out of the way or ripped apart. It may not solve the problem of getting hit by lots of smaller pieces of asteroid, but if there's enough time, this debris may be pushed out of harm's way by the blast. Humans: 1, Asteroid: zero.

Most recently, the discovery of asteroid 2012 DA14 has prompted some concern that the next asteroid to hit Earth probably won't be of extinction-level proportions, but more of city- or country-sized proportions. The 150-meter wide DA14 definitely wont hit us in 2013, but it will pass under the orbit of geosynchronous satellites, a fact that seems a little too close for comfort.
And by only having a one-year warning, what could possibly be done to mitigate the impact risk if DA14 was on target?
It seems there are only two options. We either nuke it, as the Los Alamos research suggests, or let it hit us. (And yes, the latter is a viable option).

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Solar Storm Paints Stunning Northern Lights: Big Pic

March 9, 2012 -- Coronal mass ejections unleashed by Tuesday night's powerful X-class solar flares collided with Earth's magnetosphere yesterday morning, eventually sparking amazing displays of aurorae around the world.

PHOTOS: What is the Aurora Borealis?

This stunning photo comes courtesy of Jónína Óskarsdóttir in Faskrudsfjordur, Iceland, and shows the energy of the upper atmospheric activity.

"No words can describe the experience of the Northern Lights show tonight," said Óskarsdóttir on SpaceWeather.com. "This is just a 1s exposure!"

Although the initial impact of the CME was weaker than expected, the magnetic orientations have since aligned such as to deposit more energy into Earth's magnetosphere, intensifying the storm activity -- and the potential for more aurorae!

-- by Jason Major.

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Solar Storm Warning Satellite on Last Legs

Every time a giant solar storm -- like the one that blasted by Earth earlier this week -- rushes past NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer satellite, scientists at NOAA's space weather forecasting branch cringe.
The satellite, nicknamed ACE, provides the only advance notice of incoming high-energy particles from the sun which can wreak havoc on radio, GPS, satellite communications that are now embedded in modern life.
   
Launched in 1997, ACE gives forecasters advance notice if a storm is headed toward Earth. Its measurements of solar wind strength, magnetic fields and speed were key to forecasters' assessments Thursday that Earth would be spared a direct hit from a geomagnetic storm that left the sun on Tuesday.
But how much longer ACE will last is anyone's guess.

"It would be a very bad day for us if that spacecraft was not working," William Murtagh, program coordinator for NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo., told Discovery News.
    "When an eruption occurs on the sun, there are still quite a few question marks as to if it's going to hit the Earth and when it's going to hit the Earth," Murtagh said.
Until the sun's free-flying and highly energetic outbursts, known as coronal mass ejections, hit the ACE spacecraft, forecasters don't know the orientation of their embedded magnetic fields. Depending on the polarity, or alignment, Earth's magnetic shield will either peel away, giving the highly charged particles more freedom to disturb electrically sensitive equipment and communications, or rebuff the particles, such as what happened during this week's outburst.

Stationed about 1 million miles from Earth, ACE provides early warning of what's headed toward Earth. NOAA says more than 22,000 utility operators, airlines, satellite owners, GPS users and others are signed up to receive space weather alerts and millions more get the information on NOAA's website.
"ACE is a single point of failure and it's old," Murtagh said. "Every time I have a space weather storm I cringe a little bit that our very own space weather satellite doesn't succumb to the storms I'm relying on it to help forecast."
Another satellite with space weather sensors was slated to be launched in 2003 by the ill-fated shuttle Columbia crew, but the spacecraft, known as Triana, was nixed by the Bush administration because of its backing by former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore. (Informally, Triana was sometimes referred to as GoreSat.)
Gore championed the spacecraft for its ability to continuously relay live pictures of Earth from the vantage point of 1 million miles away in space, in hopes that the global view of the blue planet would rally environmental awareness.
"There were no technical reasons why it couldn't go. We were getting ready to send it the Cape (Kennedy Space Center) for launch and we got an order that the mission was not going to go," project scientist Adam Szabo, with NASA's Heliospheric Physics Laboratory at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, told Discovery News.
After its ride was canceled, Triana was put into storage at Goddard. It is now undergoing checkouts and refurbishments in preparation for rebirth as NOAA-operated space weather sentry. The U.S. Air Force is picking up launch costs and expects to issue a solicitation soon to get the satellite, now renamed the Deep Space Climate Observatory, or DSCOVR, a ride to space.
The camera championed by Gore is still part of the spacecraft, along with a trio of instruments to monitor space weather and sensors to measure reflected heat from Earth.
Launch is targeted for June 2014. The sun's 11-year solar cycle is expected to peak in May 2013. Heightened solar activity, which is ramping up this year, will continue for about the next six years.

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