Discussion Partners

• Draw a clock on your Post-It® note.• Make marks at 2, 4, 8, and 10 o’clock.• Find someone for each of these clock times,

and write their names at each appropriate time.

• You have 4 minutes!!!!

Space WeatherUND/QuarkNet

Astrophysics Institute2010

Tom Guthrie, Penn-Harris-Madison School Corp.Member: American Meteorloogical Society.

SOURCE OF SPACE WEATHER

• Ultraviolet radiation from the Sun produces the Earth’s ozone layer.

• A constant current of charged particles flowing outward from the Sun forms the solar wind.

• Coronal Mass Injections (CMEs) and solar flares spew massive fountains of high energy plasma into the solar environment.

Our star is the source for Earth’s space weather.

DOOMSDAY 2012

• Will it come from the Sun?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_TzIUlaQok

1. Use the internet to find out Michio Kaku’s credentials.

2. Share with your partner your thoughts on this video.

5 minutes: Get with your 2 o’clock partner

EARTH’S MAGNETIC FIELD

• On average, the Earth’s poles flip every 300,000 years.

• It has now been about 780,000 years since the last flip.

• If the rate of weakening is linear, the next flip will be about 1000 years from now.

EARTH’S AURORAS

• The US at night, as imaged by DMSP

satellite • (3 passes)

• Another view

Defense Meteorolgical Satellite s Program: 101 minute, sun-synchronous near-polar orbit at an altitude of 830kmhttp://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/dmsp/dmsp.html

EARTH’S MAGNETIC FIELD

• 5 minutes: Get with your 4 o’clock partner.• Use the magnets and paperclips to observe the

magnetic field around a magnet.– Hold a paperclip while you move it nearer and

farther from the magnet.– Gently toss the paperclip at the magnet.– See if you can get the magnet to “trap” the

paperclip.– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-RM-DCJ6K0

THE SUN’S MAGNETIC FIELD

• Get with your 8 o’clock partner.• Take two tooth picks and one rubber band.• Stretch the rubber band using the tooth picks.• Rotate the tooth picks in opposite directions to

twist the rubber band. Keep the rubber band taut.• Keep twisting until you can no longer twist the

rubber band.• How did the rubber band change as you twisted it?

THE SOLAR CYCLE

On average , the sun’s magnetic poles flip every 11 years.

HOW THE SUN WORKS

http://wwwnasa.gov/wmv/176127main_09b_Sunspots.wmv

PUTTING THE PARTS TOGETHER

• The solar cycle.• How the sun works.• How the Earth responds to the Sun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sXfUHjXXLk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tfLA1vKlfE

Spaceweather Resources

• http://science.nasa.gov/heliophysics/big-questions/

• http://www.spaceweather.com/