3-D Sun model will help forecast 'space weather'

Last updated at 12:28 18 July 2006


Scientists are to create the first three-dimensional model of the Sun in an effort to protect the Earth from its most violent eruptions, which can affect everything from global positioning systems to mobile phone networks.

The Stereo mission, due to be launched next month, will allow astronomers to predict when the Sun is about to release an explosive spurt of superheated plasma towards the Earth.

This solar activity can release more than 1,000million tonnes of charged particles - 100 times as much energy as the world's entire nuclear arsenal - into space at an average speed of a million miles an hour.

If the particles reach Earth, they can disable communication systems and navigational satellites and even slip through the Earth's protective magnetic field to interfere with electricity networks and mobile phone systems.

In 1989 a solar storm left six million people without power in Quebec, and in 2003 a similar event caused power cuts in Sweden and damaged several spacecraft, including the Mars Express probe then travelling to the Red Planet.

The $500m (£275m) space mission is being funded by Nasa and the European Space Agency. It will consist of a pair of satellites - each more than half a tonne in mass and the size of a large deep freezer - which will monitor activity on the sun's surface.

A pair of probes will leave each satellite in opposite directions and monitor the Sun from different angles, providing binocular visions of its surface. Scientists will then finally be able to detect Earth-bound CMEs as soon as they form, giving crucial time to prepare and making them much easier to see.

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