• Question: What is "space weather" ?

    Asked by PartyPoison123 to Anne, Florence, Mark, Neil, Sinead on 16 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Sinead Balgobin

      Sinead Balgobin answered on 16 Nov 2015:

      Space weather describes the phenomena of solar winds and geomagnetic storms (and I’m sure plenty more astronomical phenomena I don’t know about).

      It generally describes the movement of particles or radiation in space, focussing on our solar system and how it affects Earth.

    • Photo: Florence McCarthy

      Florence McCarthy answered on 16 Nov 2015:

      This is the effect of types of radiation that can pass the vast distances of space. This is most commonly seen by us as sun spots or flares as these emit large amounts of radiation and causes such things as the northern lights.

    • Photo: Mark Collins

      Mark Collins answered on 16 Nov 2015:

      Great question, we see solar activity or solar weather which is straps of highly charged particles moving through the solar system when we there is activity at the surface of the sun such as a sun spot or any other activity and this releases enormous amounts of energy that cascades across the solar system in huge waves like a wind, there is no wind as know space is a vacuum but particles or photons can move across and we describe to be “wind-like”

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