GEOMAGNETIC STORMS THAT KILLED STARLINK SATELLITES

GEOMAGNETIC STORMS THAT KILLED STARLINK SATELLITES

TOPIC: Science & Tech

Context- Elon Musk’s Starlink has lost dozens of satellites that were caught in a geomagnetic storm a day after they were launched causing them to fall from orbit before they could be commissioned.

Concept-

Geomagnetic storms:

• Geomagnetic storms occur when a surge of solar wind — charged particles from the sun — smashes into Earth’s magnetic field and generates charged particles and currents in Earth’s upper atmosphere.
• They occur during the release of magnetic energy associated with sunspots e. ‘dark’ regions on the Sun that are cooler than the surrounding photosphere, and can last for a few minutes or hours.
• The surge warms the upper atmosphere and increases its atmospheric density such that the drag experienced by satellites in low Earth orbit can be enough to send them tumbling back to Earth.
• It can hit operations of space-dependent services like global positioning systems (GPS), radio, and satellite communications. Geomagnetic storms interfere with high-frequency radio communications and GPS navigation systems.
• The geomagnetic storm experienced by the STARLINK satellites came from solar wind kicked out by a Jan. 30 coronal mass ejection — an eruption of the sun.

Starlink Network:

• Starlink is a SpaceX project to build a broadband network with a cluster of orbiting spacecraft.
• The service offers low-latency broadband internet to remote areas across the globe, using a constellation of satellites in low-Earth orbit.
• In other words, it allows users to connect to the internet beamed from space onto a dish antenna, much like satellite TV.