There is science on the back roads and the new Solar Cycle 25 has begun.
The potential upswing in space weather will impact our lives and technology on Earth, as well as astronauts in space and a line of towers near Kapuskasing will play a role in understanding the effects.
The satellite-based economy is here and now, nearly all international banking, internet, television and communications are done by satellite.
Beyond the beauty of the Northern Lights, the space environment is extremely dangerous for the delicate electronic systems on every satellite. Conditions are particularly threatening during “magnetic storms” when astronauts are required to take shelter in the International Space Station and transpolar airline flights are diverted to avoid the dangerous radiation from space. These are storms that originate from the Sun and occur in space near Earth or in the Earth’s atmosphere
With the rising sophistication of our technologies and the number of people that use technology, vulnerability to space weather events has increased dramatically.
This unassuming bank of radar towers, located on Sylvain Road in Kitigan, 10 km east of Kapuskasing, are part of SuperDARN which stands for Super Dual Aurora Radar Network, it is a global program, with 35 radar sites around the globe, managed by sixteen institutes in ten countries. The SuperDARN radar outside provides valuable data over central Canada that promotes understanding of ionosphere processes and phenomena.
Researchers are looking forward to the radar contributing to the upcoming solar maximum during the new solar cycle that just started in early September.
Space Weather
“Extreme solar storms pose a threat to all forms of high-technology,” said Dr. J. Michael Ruohoniemi Associate Professor, Bradley Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering, Virginia Tech (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University).
He is the ‘Principle Investigator’ for the Kapusakasing (Kap) radar station as well as Goose Bay, and some others in the U.S.
“They begin with an explosion, a “solar flare”—in the magnetic canopy of a sunspot. X-rays and extreme UV radiation reach Earth at light speed, ionizing the upper layers of our atmosphere; side effects include radio blackouts and GPS navigation errors.”
Minutes to hours later, the energetic particles arrive, moving only slightly slower than light itself. Electrons and protons accelerated by the blast can electrify satellites and damage their electronics.
SuperDARN is a large international collaboration and the operation of the radar in Kapuskasing is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) through an award to Virginia Tech. A large group at the University of Saskatchewan operates five radars including three in the high arctic (‘PolarDARN’).
“Kap was built in 1993 and the site was selected because it has a good geometry with the radar at Saskatoon,” Ruohiniemi. “This means the fields-of-view of the two radars overlap substantially, making it possible to observe the same volume from two directions which is useful if you are trying to measure velocity. We also selected Kap because it is a substantial town with good facilities.”
He also has a personal connection to the town. “My father was born there and I visited my grandparents often as a kid and teenager. When we were looking at potential sites in northern Ontario I thought of the Experimental farm. We wound up going to the other side of town but it was a good start.”
Concern and Awareness
“Definitely the public should know about the potential dangers,” said Ruohoniemi. “The largest source of error on GPS measurements, for example, is space weather in the ionosphere. If GPS is being used to land aircraft this is a serious concern. “
There was a spectacular occurrence in 1859, known as the Carrington event, that interrupted telegraph systems.
“If we had an event of that magnitude again everyone would be aware of the damage to all the electrical systems in use today. The threat is cyclical with the 11-year sunspot cycle with more intense storms happening at the peak and declining phases. There was a near-miss due to a solar superstorm in 2012 – a really big flare went off but just missed Earth. We are in a quiet phase right now. I don’t want to sound alarmist, but yes, we should be paying attention to the danger posed by solar storms.”
The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center issues a continuous forecast of the weather in Earth’s near-space environment. Solar flares cause impacts that can make the evening news such as the severe geomagnetic storm in 1989; an aurora was seen as far south as Texas and knocked out the Quebec power grid.
“By combining the data from all the radars we get an image of plasma flows in the ionosphere (above 100 km altitude) that looks a lot like a typical weather map with atmospheric winds,” Ruohoniemi said. “The radars, in effect, see something like a radio wave version of the visual aurora and we can use the Doppler shift on the signal coming back to estimate plasma flow velocity.”
How it Works
“Village Media readers may be familiar with Ham radio, people who have a tall antenna by their house and a little room crammed with equipment to send and receive High Frequency (HF) radio signal. Because this signal bounces off the ionosphere at heights of 100-300 km, it can be received by other Hams a great distance away. The ionosphere is highly variable because of solar storms and sometimes the Hams can make amazing connections with people on the other side of the world but can’t connect to each other a few hundred kilometres apart. Our radar works basically like a Ham radio except that we have many antennas (16) and we are interested in how the signal bounces off the ionosphere and what that tells us about the space environment, not in communicating with other people (although we could). Not very much power is required and the radars operate continuously under computer control with connections to research labs in Canada, the U.S., and other countries.”
SuperDARN has shown how the circulation of plasma in the ionosphere (‘plasma winds’) at high latitudes is tightly controlled by the solar wind. The plasma consists of ions and electrons and can move at speeds greater than 1 km per second, so these winds are incredibly fast compared to the wind that blows in the atmosphere at ground level. “When viewed from well above the North Pole, you can see the winds forming giant cells of circulation similar to atmospheric winds. When the solar wind changes, especially when its magnetic field reverses direction, the pattern of circulation can flip in a matter of minutes. By combining data from multiple SuperDARN radars we are able to image these changes as they happen and to study the physics of the sun-earth connection, which is the basis for space weather.”
The back roads hold a lot of oddities.
This bank of radar towers doesn’t appear to be anything special but when the physics behind this space weather interaction is understood it can be seen in a different light. Scientists working on predictive models will one-day forecast space weather much like meteorologists forecast weather on Earth.
NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is depicted in this artist’s concept traveling through interstellar space, or the space between stars, which it entered in 2012. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
For the first time since November, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is returning usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems. The next step is to enable the spacecraft to begin returning science data again. The probe and its twin, Voyager 2, are the only spacecraft to ever fly in interstellar space (the space between stars).
Voyager 1 stopped sending readable science and engineering data back to Earth on Nov. 14, 2023, even though mission controllers could tell the spacecraft was still receiving their commands and otherwise operating normally. In March, the Voyager engineering team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California confirmed that the issue was tied to one of the spacecraft’s three onboard computers, called the flight data subsystem (FDS). The FDS is responsible for packaging the science and engineering data before it’s sent to Earth.
The team discovered that a single chip responsible for storing a portion of the FDS memory—including some of the FDS computer’s software code—isn’t working. The loss of that code rendered the science and engineering data unusable. Unable to repair the chip, the team decided to place the affected code elsewhere in the FDS memory. But no single location is large enough to hold the section of code in its entirety.
So they devised a plan to divide affected the code into sections and store those sections in different places in the FDS. To make this plan work, they also needed to adjust those code sections to ensure, for example, that they all still function as a whole. Any references to the location of that code in other parts of the FDS memory needed to be updated as well.
After receiving data about the health and status of Voyager 1 for the first time in five months, members of the Voyager flight team celebrate in a conference room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on April 20. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The team started by singling out the code responsible for packaging the spacecraft’s engineering data. They sent it to its new location in the FDS memory on April 18. A radio signal takes about 22.5 hours to reach Voyager 1, which is over 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, and another 22.5 hours for a signal to come back to Earth. When the mission flight team heard back from the spacecraft on April 20, they saw that the modification had worked: For the first time in five months, they have been able to check the health and status of the spacecraft.
During the coming weeks, the team will relocate and adjust the other affected portions of the FDS software. These include the portions that will start returning science data.
Voyager 2 continues to operate normally. Launched over 46 years ago, the twin Voyager spacecraft are the longest-running and most distant spacecraft in history. Before the start of their interstellar exploration, both probes flew by Saturn and Jupiter, and Voyager 2 flew by Uranus and Neptune.
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Osoyoos commuters can celebrate Earth Day as the Town joins in on a national commuter challenge known as “Leg Day,” entering a chance to win sustainable transportation prizes.
The challenge, from Earth Day Canada, is to record 10 sustainable commutes taken without a car.
“Cars are one of the biggest contributors to gas emissions in Canada,” reads an Earth Day Canada statement. “That’s why, Earth Day Canada is launching the national Earth Day is Leg Day Challenge.”
So far, over 42.000 people have participated in the Leg Day challenge.
Participants could win an iGo electric bike, public transportation for a year, or a gym membership.
The Town of Osoyoos put out a message Monday promoting joining the national program.
For more information on the Leg Day challenge click here.
Verticillium wilt is a problem for a lot of crops in Manitoba, including canola, sunflowers and alfalfa.
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In potatoes, the fungus Verticillium dahlia is the main cause of potato early die complex. In a 2021 interview with the Co-operator, Mario Tenuta, University of Manitoba soil scientist and main investigator with the Canadian Potato Early Dying Network, suggested the condition can cause yield loss of five to 20 per cent. Other research from the U.S. puts that number as high as 50 per cent.
It also becomes a marketing issue when stunted spuds fall short of processor preferences.
Verticillium in potatoes can significantly reduce yield and, being soil-borne, is difficult to manage.
Preliminary research results suggest earlier planting of risk-prone fields could reduce losses, in part due to colder soil temperatures earlier in the season.
Unlike other potato fungal issues that can be addressed with foliar fungicide, verticillium hides in the soil.
“Commonly we use soil fumigation and that’s very expensive,” said Julie Pasche, plant pathologist with North Dakota State University.
There are options. In 2017, labels expanded for the fungicide Aprovia, Syngenta’s broad-spectrum answer for leaf spots or powdery mildews in various horticulture crops. In-furrow verticillium suppression for potatoes was added to the label.
There has also been interest in biofumigation. Mustard has been tagged as a potential companion crop for potatoes, thanks to its production of glucosinolate and the pathogen- and pest-inhibiting substance isothiocyanate.
Last fall, producers heard that a new, sterile mustard variety specifically designed for biofumigation had been cleared for sale in Canada, although seed supplies for 2024 are expected to be slim. AAC Guard was specifically noted for its effectiveness against verticillium wilt.
Timing is everything
Researchers at NDSU want to study the advantage of natural plant growth patterns.
“What we’d like to look at are other things we can do differently, like verticillium fertility management and water management, as well as some other areas and how they may be affected by planting date,” Pasche said.
The idea is to find a chink in the fungus’s life cycle.
Verticillium infects roots in the spring. From there, it colonizes the plant, moving through the root vascular tissue and into the stem. This is the cause of in-season vegetative wilting, Pasche noted.
As it progresses, plant cells die, leaving behind tell-tale black dots on dead tissue. Magnification of those dots reveals what look like dark bunches of grapes — tiny spheres containing melanized hyphae, a resting form of the fungus called microsclerotia.
The dark colour comes from melanin, the same pigment found in human skin. This pigmentation protects the microsclerotia from ultraviolet light.
