LivingwiththesolarwindAstronomyAddictedTeamHAEFPsychicoCollege,Greece

Adamopoulou Katerina Golanta Antonia Sapounaki Alkis5s Teacher: I. Kontodinas

AuroraBorealis

SolarWind

•  A stream of plasma released from the corona in all direc5ons •  Average speeds of about 400 km/s •  Corona’s temperature: 1.1 million ᵒC

ElementscomposingtheSolarWindandtheCoronalMassEjecDon

•  Bare light elements: H2, He, C, N2, O2

•  CME: a massive burst of gas and magne5c field arising from the solar corona.

InnercoreoftheEarth

•  liquid iron, nickel surrounding the inner core

•  convec5on currents & swirling

MagneDcfieldlinesofabarmagnet

•  magne5c field extends infinitely

•  weaker with distance

TheEarth’smagnetosphere

daysidefield

nightsidefield

The solar wind:

•  compresses dayside field

•  stretches nightside field

TheEarth’smagnetosphere

•  Magnetopause: protec5ve boundary between the solar wind and the Earth’s magne5c field.

•  Magnetotail: Stretched field that stores energy

Solarwind’spath

•  Some SW par5cles leak into the magnetosphere and reach Earth

•  Collisions with atmosphere’s par5cles cause the Aurora

Auroraart

Firstexperiment

barmagnet

smallmirror

laserlight

Experimental Data

y=1.8919x-0.0723R²=0.99649

-2

-1.5

-1

-0.5

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

-1.000 -0.500 0.000 0.500 1.000 1.500

tanθ

I(A)

tanθvselectriccurrentI

M = 16.5 μT

Excel Graph

Using:

RepeDDonoftheTangentGalvanometerexperiment

OurData15Jan16.5μT7Mar24.0μT8Mar21.9μT

hGp://www-app1.gfz-potsdam.de/cgi-bin/ngkget9.pl

ImpactsonSatellites

Solar panels contain silicon cells

Constant rate of degrada5on

Big drops due to solar storms

The decline in power supplied by solar panels.

Satellitedrag

Loss of al5tude of satellites

•  Maximum solar ac5vity

satellites re-boosted every 3 weeks

•  Minimum solar ac5vity

satellites re-boosted every 3 months

posi5ve correla5on between the degree of solar ac5vity and the loss of al5tude and thus the corresponding need for adjus5ng satellite orbits.

The pink curve represents the average sunspot number on a yearly basis and the purple curve indicates the number of

satellites that needed to be reentered to their orbit per year.

Powergrid

•  Carrington event : 1859

•  Telegraph operators discharged

Powergrid

•  infrastructure in the ground

•  transformers overload •  components of the transformer are overheated

destruc5on reduced lifespan

PowergridThe varia5on of magne5c la5tude is displayed.

As magne5c la5tude increases the poten5al impact of a GIC increases.

The arrows indicate how risk increases as we move from low la5tude regions to large la5tude regions.

PossiblesoluDons•  Adequate generators in cri5cal places

•  Predict solar storms

•  Invest in protec5on

Thirdexperiment

photodiodegeneratorlaserlight

circuit

amplifier

speakers

Setup&TransmissioninterrupDon

Thirdexperiment

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•  WulfFriedlander,Michael."CosmicRay|Physics."EncyclopediaBritannicaOnline.EncyclopediaBritannica,n.d.Web.28Jan.2016.<hGp://www.britannica.com/topic/cosmic-ray>.

THANKYOU!

Special acknowledgments to:

Mr. Kontodinas Ms. Vagdou5 Mr. Kalpaxis Mr. Kitsionas

Mr. Kogias