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STORM SIGNALS

From Satellites:

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Satellites have the advantage of being able to monitor the Sun continuously without interference from our atmosphere - or concern about lightning strikes.

The WIND spacecraft is part of a group of satellites that are constantly measuring the magnetosphere and the interplanetary space environment near the Earth. Since study of the solar wind is one of the important tasks of this satellite it was given the name "WIND". It has an orbit that often takes it between the Earth and the Sun out beyond the extent of the Earth's magnetosphere where it can measure the solar wind coming toward the Earth. The GOES satellites, while primarily studying Earth and Earthly weather, monitor the Sun for x-ray radiation and provide us with information about the solar wind and space weather. The RHESSI satellite monitors the Sun for x-ray emission, and SOHO gives us images in several wavelengths of ultraviolet light in addition to other important data. Used together you can detect a solar storm, determine how powerful the storm is, determine whether there was a solar flare and if a coronal mass ejection occurred, and find out exactly where on the Sun the storm occurred.

If you are just Getting Started, you can monitor the GOES x-ray plot for solar activity and the WAVES instrument of the WIND satellite for radio activity from the Sun. The Latest Events web site offers you a wealth of data over several days in one place. More Advanced Observations allow you to compare x-ray data from RHESSI with WAVES data, and to search archives of GOES movies of solar events, archives from Latest Events, and all RHESSI data provide archives.

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