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Science|Northern Lights Are Beautiful, but They’re Risky for Satellites
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/12/science/northern-lights-solar-satellites.html
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NASA seemed ready on Wednesday to loft its latest robotic mission to Mars, ESCAPADE, into space aboard a rocket from the company Blue Origin.
But the launch was scrubbed on account of “highly elevated solar activity and its potential effects” on the spacecraft, the company said in a post on social media.
On Tuesday, two blasts of solar material, made by a pair of powerful coronal mass ejections — giant explosions from the sun’s surface that spew streams of charged particles — crashed into the Earth’s magnetic bubble in space. They caused gorgeous light shows in night skies that may again be visible on Wednesday night into Thursday morning. But these solar storms and continuing activity also necessitated careful monitoring of the fleets of satellites in orbit, and of those that are headed there.
“History points to these compound C.M.E.s and overlapping storms as being the most significant for space weather effects,” said Daniel Baker, a scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. “That’s what we’re in the throes of right now.”
Activity from the sun, which ebbs and flows on an 11-year cycle, reached a peak last year. According to Dr. Baker, the phase after a peak is often when flares, explosions and other solar activity become most prevalent. When directed toward Earth, this activity can cause disturbances — a geomagnetic storm — in the planet’s magnetosphere, the protective bubble that shields us from harmful solar radiation.
