Jussi Luntama-European Space Agency's Lagrange Mission-Viewing Solar Activity From a New Perspective, Preparing for the Next Big Coronal Mass Ejection

Finding Genius Podcast

Richard Jacobs

Medicine, Health & Fitness

4.4 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 15 October 2018

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It's been about 150 years since the largest known coronal mass ejection (CME)--the ejection of millions of tons of plasma from the sun into space at a speed of 300 kilometers per second. On average, CMEs occur every 100 to 200 years, which means the next big event is inevitable. While it won't threaten life on earth, it will put every satellite system at risk and threaten the safety of astronauts in space.

As the head of space weather at the European Space Agency, Jussi Luntama discusses the 2018 Lagrange mission that aims to monitor solar activity and more accurately predict the presence and direction of a coming CME. The team working on the ESA Lagrange mission will park a spacecraft at Lagrange points, which are points where the gravitational pull of the sun and earth balance each other out. This will cause the spacecraft to trail the earth's orbit at a distance of 150 million kilometers for eternity or until intentionally moved, and will allow them to view solar activity from a perspective that's different from the one they have when looking at the sun from the earth.

Tune in to hear Jussi Luntama discuss a variety of interesting topics, including the relationship between CMEs and periods of high and low solar activity, the effects of CMEs on power grids, and the launch of the Lagrange spacecraft planned to happen between 2023 and early 2025. To learn more, simply type "Where no mission has gone before" into a Google search engine.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Almost Here, Around the Corner of Future Technology Podcasts with Richard Jacobs.
0:07.0	Future Technologies is to transform our lives for better or worse or the focus of this podcast.
0:13.0	Almost here means these technologies are now here and starting to be used.
0:17.0	Or just around the corner, for Bitcoin to artificial intelligence,
0:21.0	3D printing, blockchain, virtual reality, and more.
0:25.0	Hello, this is Richard Jacobs with the Future Tech Podcast.
0:30.0	My guest is Mr. UC Luntama, he's head of space weather and ESA is the European
0:37.1	Space Agency. We were talking about the new mission, the Lagrange mission,
0:42.0	that's going to monitor solar activity.
0:44.4	As I'm sure a lot of people know, solar activity can dramatically affect what goes on on
0:49.8	Earth, you know what satellites and communication equipment and everything. So so you see how you doing today I'm good thank you thank you very much
0:57.5	Yes, and tell me about this mission what what does it entail and, you know, we're not entering the sun, but from where, you know, what's the mission going to look like?
1:07.6	Yeah, well, LaGras mission is actually, it's a mission very much encouraged by the success of the NASA stereo missions actually because stereo mission contained two spacecraft we were which were flying around the sun from the Earth perspective and they were looking at the solar
1:26.3	activity from different angles and different locations and that encouraged us to have to look at the possibility to establish something which we could consider as a permanent
1:39.0	operational stereo mission that we would have one spacecraft in a specific location. on a we can actually see the solar activity from a different perspective than what it looks like when we look towards the sun from the earth.
1:58.0	What is the Lagrange points and what will we, what perspective is it that we're not seeing right now?
2:04.1	Well, the Lagrange points in general are the points where the gravitational pull of the
2:12.3	sun and the earth, also considering the orbital mechanics, they
2:17.7	balance each other out. So basically the Lagrange points are the point where the spacecraft is in a stable position
2:25.2	not pulled towards the sun or not pulled away from the sun.
2:29.9	And the fifth Lagrange point is actually it's not exactly a point is kind of a plateau.
2:35.9	It's an area which is on Earth orbit 150 million kilometers behind the air and if we park a spacecraft there it will stay there
	...

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