Solar Storms vs satellites : the unseen space battle

 What is solar Strom? 

Space weather is produced in the short term by solar storms, which are disturbances on the Sun that can radiate outward across the heliosphere and affect the entire Solar System, including Earth and its magnetosphere. Space climate is made up of long-term patterns that result from solar storms.

Causes and types of solar Strom 

The fluctuations of the sun's magnetic field causes these powerful solar Strom. Solar flares and the coronal mass ejections (CME)  are the two major types of solar Strom.Solar flares, the most common storms are caused by high energy particles and x-rays, and gamma rays. Solar Flares are quick, and strong. The acceleration of charged particles in the surrounding plasma caused by magnetic energy stored in the Sun's atmosphere is assumed to be the cause of solar flares. This causes electromagnetic radiation spanning the electromagnetic spectrum to be emitted.

How powerful are solar Strom 

As we encounters volcanic eruption in the earth , similarly these solar Strom or the solar flares are similar to the eruption in the sun, ie. Usually a sudden  flash of light near the sunspot. These powerful eruptions can generate the power equipment to the power of 1 billion nuclear bombs each of 1 megaton.

Typically, a flare releases energy at a rate of 10^27 ergs per second. Large flares have an energy output of up to 10^32 ergs. This energy is 10 million times more powerful than that of a volcanic eruption.

These Strom are so powerful that even we can feel those. as it is the release of the magnetic energy from the sunspot so it can easily transfer through the vaccine in between the earth and the sun and we can feel it. Symptomatically , these Strom's can make us feel nervous , dizziness, nausea , worried and anxious.

Solar Strom and satellite 

As satellites are the freely moving bodies around the planet and they are large in number so experts believe that the risk of satellite could be extremely high after the solar strom.

After a significant solar storm slammed Earth in October 2003, satellite operators lost sight of hundreds of spacecraft for days. Experts are concerned that the next major solar storm might cause weeks of havoc in the near-Earth space due to the growth in satellites and junk orbiting the planet in the nearly twenty years since the last one.

20,000 objects larger than 4 inches (10 centimeters) are currently being tracked by the U.S. Space Surveillance Network (SSN) in low Earth orbit, the area of space below 620 miles (1,000 kilometers). While some of these objects are functioning satellites, the majority are wrecked spacecraft, wasted rocket stages, and collision-related debris. In order to keep track of these objects' whereabouts in space and predict their future trajectories, SSN scientists utilize radar observations to compile a catalog. The satellite operator receives a warning when two objects, such as a piece of space debris and a satellite, appear to be approaching each other dangerously close. They sometimes perform avoidance techniques to avoid collisions.

But there's a problem. When there are solar storms, the positions of those objects become less clear, perhaps to the point where accurate collision forecasts are unattainable. The catalog of orbital objects is practically invalidated in the greatest storms, according to Tom Berger, a solar physicist and the head of the University of Colorado, Boulder's Space Weather Technology Center, who spoke to Space.com. "The objects may be hundreds of kilometers away from the locations where radar last detected them. The only way to find them again is using radar since they are essentially lost."

"These spacecraft will have extremely high drag, and it won't be uniform at any given height or position. Due to [the solar storm's] exceptional dynamics, it will change over time. It will undoubtedly be difficult during one of these significant occasions."Fortunately, these significant occasions don't occur frequently. Since the 'Halloween storms' in 2003, Earth has had some rather benign space weather. But in 2012, a CME that would have caused the solar storm of the century was just nine days away from striking our planet.

Space safety experts, who fear what may occur if we were to lose control of the orbital placements of satellites in today's increasingly congested space environment, are unconvinced by the comparatively seldom nature of these events. According to Berger, just 5,000 monitored objects were present in low Earth orbit during the 2003 Halloween storms, and despite the loss of control over the situation, no collisions were detected. However, since 2003, the number of objects in this delicate area of space has grown by a factor of four, raising the possibility of orbital collisions.

According to Berger, a typical satellite operator may now spend between 30 and 50 percent of their time responding to collision notifications. "Operators of low-Earth orbit satellites now get one alert each day on average. Every few weeks, they must move to lessen the likelihood of a collision, and around one every week is dangerous enough to be examined in closer depth. In the past, it wasn't like that."

Spacecraft operators may choose to "throw up their hands," cross their fingers, and wait for the Space Surveillance Network to piece together the positions of satellites and debris objects in the wake of a significant solar storm, according to Berger.The majority of contemporary satellites are fitted with GPS receivers, allowing the operators to maintain some awareness of the satellite positions (although solar storms can cause GPS blackouts and significant inaccuracies in the position readings). However, debris items lack GPS and can only be found via radar. It could take weeks to completely recover today's far larger database, according to Berger, even with the increased investment in new tracking radars and the development of commercial companies in the sector of debris monitoring in recent years.

Spacecraft operators probably won't get much sleep during those weeks, and it's not just because there's a chance their ship could get hurt. The space safety community has been raising concerns about the increasing amount of debris in low Earth orbit for a number of years. The sustainability of orbital operations is threatened by this debris as well as the rise of operational satellites over the past 10 years (caused by the introduction of mega-constellations like SpaceX's Starlink).According to experts, the so-called Kessler syndrome, a series of collisions that can make the orbital environment dangerous enough to render it useless, is already in its initial phases. A few bad breaks during the pandemonium that follows a strong solar storm may easily swing the balance. Then what? In the worst case, a situation similar to the plot of the 2013 Oscar-winning film Gravity might occur as the rest of the world helplessly observes.