STRONG SOLAR FLARE AND CME: New sunspot 4300 erupted today (Dec.4th @ 0250 UTC), producing a strong M6-class solar flare. A CME emerged from the blast site, but a NASA model shows that it will miss Earth. Meanwhile, giant sunspot complex 4294-4296 remains ominously quiet. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text.
HOW THE SUN GROUNDED 6000 PLANES: Thanksgiving travelers were surprised last week when Airbus grounded roughly six thousand A320-family jets for an urgent software rollback. The cause of the delay? Fears of radiation from cosmic rays and solar storms.
Photo credit: Alessandro Gambaro of Castano Primo (MI) - Italy
The problem came to light on Oct. 30th, when a JetBlue Airways A320 flying from Cancun to New Jersey suddenly dropped in altitude. At least 15 passengers were injured. When investigators dug into the flight-control data, they found that the aircraft’s software was vulnerable to "single-event upsets" -- bit-flips caused when a high-energy particle randomly changes a 1 to a 0 (or vice versa), corrupting critical data.
In the A320s, some recently installed software wasn't properly hardened against this kind of glitch so, on Nov. 28th, regulators ordered an emergency rollback before the jets could return to service. In most cases, the jets were back in the air the next day.
Although some mainstream news outlets suggested the JetBlue mishap was triggered by solar radiation, there was no solar-radiation storm on Oct. 30th. Instead, the upset was likely caused by a stray galactic cosmic ray -- the same class of particle that the sun produces in large quantities during intense storms.
"Avionics are bathed in cosmic rays continuously," says Clive Dyer, a radiation expert at the UK's Surrey Space Centre. "This can result in anomalies even when no solar storm is happening."
Coincidentally, less than two weeks after the JetBlue incident, there was a significant solar-radiation event. On Nov. 11th, an X-class solar flare triggered the strongest ground-level event (GLE) in nearly 20 years. Energetic particles flooded Earth's atmosphere, doubling radiation levels at aviation altitudes (shown in the map above).
Dyer and colleagues analyzed the storm and found that bit-flips in computer memory could have occurred at a rate of ~60 errors per hour per gigabyte. No flight anomalies were reported, he notes, but "I can only believe that the Nov. 11th event focused minds on this problem."
It's a problem worth focusing on. On Feb. 23, 1956, the largest GLE of the modern era boosted aviation radiation levels more than 100×. Tree rings and ice cores show that "Miyake Events" (GLEs thousands of times more intense) have struck Earth in the past few millennia. Modern society simply hasn’t experienced one yet.
Upgrading the flight software is a good idea.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter
GIFTS FROM THE EDGE OF SPACE: Christmas is coming. Are you looking for a far-out gift? Check out the Earth to Sky Store. It's filled with unique items that have flown to the edge of space onboard cosmic ray research balloons.
These unique gifts have flown above 99.7% of Earth's atmosphere, experiencing space-like blasts of cosmic rays, extreme cold, and a wild ride parachuting back to Earth after the balloon explodes. Even Amazon doesn't carry items this far out.
Don't forget to enter coupon code "EARTHTOSKY" at checkout for a 10% holiday discount.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
Realtime Comet Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter
Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter