- A severe solar radiation storm this week prompted NASA
to order astronauts aboard the International Space Station to take shelter
in a more heavily shielded Russian-built section of the orbiting outpost.
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- The three crewmen remained in the aft end of the Zvezda
module for about 12 hours before the warning was lifted. During that time,
Russian scientists estimated, the crew received the equivalent of a week's
normal radiation exposure.
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- "It wasn't life threatening, and they weren't projected
to receive any exposures that would put them even close to their limits,"
said Michael Golightly, chief of space science at Johnson Space Center
in Houston. "But we don't like them to get any extra exposure if we
can help it."
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- The instructions to take shelter followed the eruption
Wednesday evening of solar flare activity described as the fourth-largest
solar radiation storm since 1976.
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- Rated an S-4 event by the federal Space Environment Center
in Boulder, Colo., the solar flare launched a torrent of high-energy protons
toward the Earth at rates 100,000 times greater than normal.
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- An S-4 radiation event is defined as posing unavoidable
radiation hazards to astronauts caught outside their spacecraft on space
walks. Passengers and crew on commercial airliners flying over the arctic
can receive exposures equivalent to 10 chest X-rays.
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- The radiation can also disrupt computer memories, star-tracking
devices and solar panels on satellites, and black out high-frequency radio
communications in polar regions.
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- An average of three such events are expected during each
of the sun's 11-year cycles of activity. The current solar cycle is at
its peak this year and next.
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- Chris Balch, a duty forecaster at the Space Environment
Center on Friday, said this week's radiation storm began at 3:55 p.m. PST
on Wednesday.
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- The flow, or "flux" of high-energy protons
-- powerful enough to penetrate spacecraft -- quickly began to rise. It
peaked just before midnight, measured at 347 particle flux units per second,
per square centimeter.
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- "That's a very unusual event," Balch said.
"The threshold when we wake people up about this is at one flux unit.
It's rare that we even go above 100. That's why it really got our attention."
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