Earlier this week, the Australian Space Weather Forecasting Centre was opened.
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The Bureau of Meteorology has been monitoring space weather for decades.
One of early ionospheric weather stations - monitoring disturbances in the upper atmosphere - is at the base of Mt Stromlo Observatory in Canberra.
Mt Stromlo Observatory in fact was started due to space weather.
In 1859, a massive solar storm erupted and hit the Earth.
Called the Carrington event, it was one of the biggest solar storms in human history.
The power of this storm was so strong it created aurora across half the planet.
The aurora was visible all the way down to the equator.
It also electrically charged telegraph lines, so much so that telegraph operators got electro-shocked on the end.
This is one of the huge worries of solar storms and space weather - their impacts on Earth, and why having a focused, dedicated centre for Australia is critical.
![Solar storms can now be closely monitored from Australia. Picture NASA Solar storms can now be closely monitored from Australia. Picture NASA](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/RXMuw2JbrrS7ELSxSY9rkR/67ca5405-f0dd-4ff0-8a50-a6b4cdebb959.jpeg/r0_357_1020_929_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Every 11 years, the sun goes through changes in its activity. Called the solar cycle, the sun's magnetic field changes, or flips.
Imagine your magnet on the fridge going from positive to negative, so instead of sticking to your fridge, it now repels it.
Some parts of this cycle are called minima, when the activity on the sun is a lot less, producing less flares and sunspots.
There are also the maxima when the sun is at its peak activity, when we see big solar flares and coronal mass ejections - eruptions on the sun where some of its material is ejected and travels through space.
We are now fully into a maxima period of the sun that will peak sometime in the next few years.
As charged particles and gas leave the Sun, they travel through space and slam into our Earth's atmosphere. Since these particles are charged, it excites the gas in our atmosphere, and when it does, causes it to glow, producing the aurora.
It is similar to a neon sign, which sends an electrical current through a tube filled with neon (or other gasses) and causes it to glow. Instead of electricity, essentially a burp from the Sun has travelled 150 million kilometers and is hitting our atmosphere.
While on Earth the show is beautiful, in space for our satellites and any humans, it is a very different situation.
Big storms can cause interference with satellite communications, which can severely impact operations on Earth. If the storm is really big, it can even damage the satellite, potentially disabling it. The radiation and those charged particle can wreak havoc on those satellites.
And as we are living in a world growing increasingly dependent on them, the ramifications can be huge. GPS to internet, TV and radio to even banking can all go down with a big solar storm.
If it is really big, like in 1859, they can even cause damage to electrical grids on Earth. It happened to Quebec in the 1980s, causing billions of dollars of damage.
However, just like storms on Earth, storms in space can vary in strength, they will only affect part of the Earth sometimes, and we can study them to get warning.
Monitoring space weather is not only a long part of Australian space history, it is a critical part of our future.
- Brad Tucker is an astrophysicist and cosmologist at Mt Stromlo Observatory and the National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science at the ANU.