Astronomy Artemis II is about to take a trip to a record-breaking flight orbiting the moon, giving NASA a rare opportunity to study how deep space affects the human body.
After leaving Earth’s protective gravity, the four-person crew will be exposed to space weather – which includes intense bursts of radiation from the sun, known as solar flares.
Live Science spoke with Patricia Reiffprofessor of physics and astronomy at Rice University in Houston, Texas, to discuss the atmospheric climate and how it can affect the weather. The Work of Artemis II.
Reiff has more than fifty years of experience studying atmospheric plasma physics and earned his doctorate analyzing data from NASA’s first missions to the moon during the Apollo era. Here is what he had to say about the dangers of radiation Name of Artemis II workers will be exposed during their return history.
Patrick Pester: What is space weather, and how can it affect the life of an astronaut?
Patricia Reiff: Weather comes in many forms. A sunlight it can produce very powerful particles that come almost the speed of lightand those are the ones that can harm the scientists on the way to the moon because they are so active that they can penetrate into the atmosphere.
Long-term patterns of climate in a region are the result of a coronal ejection (CME). When that hits the Earth, it can create beautiful auroras. A CME can affect power transmission lines, but it won’t affect scientists in space because it has low energy and is not directly harmful.
PP: Of the radiation sources that scientists are exposed to, which are the most dangerous?
PR: There are two types of rays involving extraterrestrial astronauts. One is the energetic particles of the sun. These are the ones that come because of the heat of the sun. They can be very powerful, but they are usually short-lived. When such a storm occurs, scientists know where to go in a capsule that provides the greatest protection.
It’s like taking a chest X-Ray every day. You don’t want to do it for too long.
Patricia Reiff
Another type of radiation that is dangerous to astronauts in deep space is the galaxy cosmic rays. Those are very powerful, but there are very few of them, and they are the default background. It’s like taking a chest X-Ray every day. You don’t want to do it for too long. Those are very hard to defend against because they are so powerful that when they hit a spacecraft, they just do [secondary rays] that can get worse like the primaries.
One of the best things about most of the daywhich is where we are now, that is the wind of the day is strong, and helps to block those cosmic rays from entering the inner solar system. So, if I were going to do a long-duration mission to the moon or Mars, I would go to higher altitudes than the sun. the minimum of the day.
PP: It’s interesting because you would think it would be different when the sun is more active.
PR: The sun helps clear our necks of the woods when the solar wind is strong, but you have to worry about these individual events from the sun’s rays. And you don’t get much warning because they come at the speed of light. When we see it in the sun, it is here. On the other hand, they only last a few hours, so even if you don’t get much advance warning, you can still protect yourself by hiding in a good, solid place.
One of the things they did Artemis I was to install sensors in various parts of The Orion spacecraft to find out where the safe places are. The first paper I ever published, back when I was working on Apollo, was a solar flare. In August 1972. That was so powerful that if any astronaut was in the command module or the lunar module, they would have had a near fatal dose. [Fortunately, no astronauts were in space at the time.] So, that’s something we have to take care of, and the good thing about the Orion spacecraft is that it’s better protected than the Apollo spacecraft was.
PP: A recent study found that the likelihood of superflares is greater during solar eclipses, and the lead author recommended that NASA delay Artemis II until the end of the year. Are they right or wrong?
PR: The sun has an 11-year cycle, and generally, giant flares appear at the top. sunspot number. But not every sunspot cycle is the same. The sunspot cycle we’re in now is stronger than the one we had 11 years ago, but it’s no stronger than the others. So, I don’t need to see any additional risk to superflare now more than we would have 20 years ago.
That said, it’s still possible. That’s why we keep our eyes in the sun. We see those sunspot groups and look gravity structure in the sun. When that magnetic field becomes very perturbed, very perturbed, the force increases within the gravitational field, like pushing a rubber band through a paper plane. And when the sunlight comes, that energy is released. That is the energy that provides the energy of solar energy.
PP: One of the goals of the Artemis II mission is to study the effect of space radiation on the health of stars. How do we do that?
PR: Each astronaut keeps an eye on his person to measure how much radiation he has absorbed. And there is a large number of annual and lifetime. So, if the astronaut receives the maximum amount of radiation for the rest of his life, then they are done; they leave to go to space. Interestingly, the maximum lifetime allowance for an astronaut is higher than the maximum lifetime allowance for a pilot because it’s a more dangerous job, and that’s the risk they’re signing up for.
Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited and shortened for clarity.
#Astronomers #face #lethal #levels #solar #radiation #launch #Artemis #peak #solar #activity #Space #scientist #Patricia #Reiff #explains