A Curious Statistical Anomaly

NASA announced that it will finally get a good look at our Sun. NASA manages to put the importance of this ability in a nutshell:

STEREO’s deployment on opposite sides of the Sun solves a problem that has vexed astronomers for centuries: At any given moment they can see only half of the stellar surface. The Sun spins on its axis once every 25 days, so over the course of a month the whole Sun does turn to face Earth, but a month is not nearly fast enough to keep track of events. Sunspots can materialize, explode, and regroup in a matter of days; coronal holes open and close; magnetic filaments stretch tight and—snap!—they explode, hurling clouds of hot gas into the solar system. Fully half of this action is hidden from view, a fact which places space weather forecasters in an awkward position. How can you anticipate storms when you can’t see them coming? Likewise researchers cannot track the long-term evolution of sunspots or the dynamics of magnetic filaments because they keep ducking over the horizon at inconvenient times. STEREO’s global view will put an end to these difficulties.

We’ve never been able to see a full 360 view of our sun and using these two STEREO spacecraft we’ll get that chance. Having the full image of the sun available is still two years away but already scientists are getting glimpses of what just over the horizon from what they could see before. You know that bit that’s hidden just a little bit further and you feel if you stretch you could see it. Well, now these spacecraft are giving them that little bit of stretch to see beyond what they had before. It’s a taste of what’s coming and has them all excited about what they could learn. Currently that peek is giving them about a three day advantage — they can see what will be coming around when the Sun spins on its axis by about three days.

Getting better information about the sun and its flares, spots, winds, and such is very important for those of us who use high-tech gadgets. The sun is moving into a very active phase and that is going to effect the Earth’s atmosphere to make some spectacular auroras. However, it’s also going to cause electrical disruptions that can badly decay high-tech gadgets ability to work as smoothly as they do now. There will probably be drop outs in communications using satellites — phones, PDAs, TV reception, internet connections. Having advanced warning of such possible disruptions and maybe some plans to ameliorate the difficulties would be very nice (especially since I have a cellular internet connection).