Solar Connections' contribution to society:
Space Weather: Space assets (worth $110B) provide weather forecasts, television, telephone, navigation, and other important services. The Sun's variable interaction with the magnetosphere, ionosphere, and upper atmosphere can create a potentially damaging environment for those space assets. Solar Connections will provide a firmer foundation for more reliable "space weather" prediction. A casualty of "space weather," ANIK-E2, a communications satellite, recently failed after being bombarded by high-energy electrons triggered by the Sun.
Global Change: The program will help clarify the relative contributions of natural processes and human activities to global change and can provide answers to important questions in global climate. Changes in the thermosphere also provide an extremely sensitive test of more subtle changes in the lower atmosphere, as harbingers of global change.
Education: Solar Connections will produce images of the vast, dynamic space environment around Earth and the Sun and enhance general knowledge of these phenomena. The program will have a strong, central educational component for all students.
Technology: Solar Connections will use and develop new technologies such as high-density data storage; new image-processing techniques; radiation-hardened microprocessors; lightweight fiber composites and optical coatings; ultra-high temperature resistant materials; new cooling technology; and new ways of taking X-ray pictures.
International: Solar Connections is a cooperative international program, in particular in a joint effort with Russia to study the Sun. A comprehensive international ground-based effort will provide collaborative data.
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Solar Connections: A Science Initiative for NASA Space Physics
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