How NASA Will Protect Astronauts From Space Radiation
August 1972, as NASA scientist Ian Richardson remembers it, was hot. In Surrey, England, where he grew up, the fields were brown and dry, and people tried to stay out of the Sun, indoors and televisions on. But for several days that month, his TV picture kept breaking up. “Do not adjust your set,” he recalls the BBC announcing. “Heat isn’t causing the interference. It’s sunspots.”
The same sunspots that disrupted the television signals led to enormous solar flares — powerful bursts of radiation from the Sun — Aug. 4-7 that year. Between the Apollo 16 and 17 missions, the solar eruptions were a near miss for lunar explorers. Had they been in orbit or on the Moon’s surface, they would have sustained dangerous levels of solar radiation sparked by the eruptions. Today, the Apollo-era flares serve as a reminder of the threat of radiation exposure for technology and astronauts in space. Understanding and predicting solar eruptions is crucial for safe space exploration.
Almost 50 years since those 1972 storms, the data, technology and resources available to NASA have improved, enabling advancements towards space weather forecasts and astronaut protection — key to NASA’s Artemis program to return astronauts to the Moon.
Music credits: “Boreal Moment” by Benoit Scarwell [SACEM]; “Sensory Questioning”, “Natural Time Cycles”, “Emerging Designer”, and “Experimental Design” by Laurent Dury [SACEM]; “Superluminal” by Lee Groves [PRS], Peter George Marett [PRS] from Killer Tracks
Read more:
This video is public domain and along with other supporting visualizations can be downloaded from the Scientific Visualization Studio at:
If you liked this video, subscribe to the NASA Goddard YouTube channel:
Follow NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
· Instagram
· Twitter
· Twitter
· Facebook:
· Flickr
1 view
538
156
1 month ago 03:09:40 1
2024 Total Solar Eclipse: Through the Eyes of NASA (Official Broadcast)
1 month ago 00:07:19 1
Solar eclipse in Northeast Ohio: Cleveland experiences totality
1 month ago 00:03:15 1
What if you threw a baseball at nearly light speed?
1 month ago 00:17:00 1
Science of Three Body Problem: Do Trisolaran-Like Systems Actually Exist?
1 month ago 00:12:32 1
Главные астрономические события XXI века.
1 month ago 00:02:55 1
How NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Overcomes the Sun’s Intense Heat
1 month ago 00:29:21 1
TIMELAPSE OF THE FUTURE: A Journey to the End of Time (4K)
1 month ago 02:03:10 2
Capricorn One (1978) HD
1 month ago 00:00:00 1
NASA Live: Official Stream of NASA TV
1 month ago 00:07:35 1
How to use the Bathroom in Space
1 month ago 00:04:00 1
STEMonstrations: Sleep Science
1 month ago 00:12:06 2
The Future of Living: Self-Sustaining Villages | James Ehrlich | TEDxKlagenfurt
1 month ago 00:03:50 1
Wanderers - a short film by Erik Wernquist [Official Version]
1 month ago 00:08:21 1
NASA: The San Andreas Fault Is FINALLY Going To Crack & Is About To Cause Record Flooding
1 month ago 00:06:12 1
Video - Mars Curiosity Rover (3,000 Martian sols)
1 month ago 00:30:43 1
THE SIGHTS OF SPACE: A Voyage to Spectacular Alien Worlds