Jakarta –
Sun storm It is predicted that it will become more vicious as the activity of the Sun becomes more intense. Great danger lurks, especially against satellite which could be more and more falling out.
It already happened. In February, Elon Musk’s spacecraft company SpaceX announced that about 40 Starlink internet satellites had been damaged by a solar storm. Some even fall out of orbit.
Intense activity on the Sun causes the atmosphere to heat up, increasing the attraction to the satellite. Even though it was set to safe mode, dozens of Starlinks still couldn’t fix their position and then fell to Earth until they were completely burned.
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Such solar storms are caused by powerful explosions on the Sun’s surface, spewing plasma and magnetic fields that can hit Earth and disrupt electronic systems.
The incident that befell SpaceX is indeed very detrimental, but not too impactful. Because they have flown thousands of Starlink satellites. But if a similar incident happened to another satellite operator, the problem could be much bigger.
The European Space Agency (ESA), for example, detects their Swarm satellite to study the Earth’s magnetic field, its position is getting lower. In fact, the rate of decline is 10 times faster than a few years ago.
The altitude of the Swarm satellite is the same as Starlink. However, if SpaceX has around 2,000 Starlinks, ESA only has 3 Swarm units. That is, if even one falls out as a result Sun stormit could be that their research mission will fall apart.
Next page, Solar Storm is getting fiercer>>>
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