Warning! Rare Solar Data

[MC]

No,tonight I'm fine.Yesterday,we had a weird windy day all day.It was sunny,but the wind was just wild.

[Sily]

Cool answer!  :D

Polly.................... have you been watching the skies the last two nights?  Venus - Jupiter and the moon very close to one another in the sky.  Last night's view was better than tonight's but still driving home tonight was neat.  Those two planets are bright, bright, bright!

[Polly]

Sily, I had an extremely clear view last evening of the triangular conjunction when I went outside.  Space Weather says it is the most photographed event in their eleven years.

What would cause a temperature change out around that GOES satellite?  It seems that would be accounted for in the sensor's design if it happened on a regular basis.  Don't mind me, it's just my mind exploring.

 

[Polly]

I inquired about the sensors and here is the reply I received on the 4th:

Code:

Polly,

Larry passed your questions on to me and I am including the real expert
on the GOES particle sensors, Terry Onsager, in my response.

On Friday, 28 November, the GOES 12 Energetic Particle Sensor (EPS)
experienced a partial failure of its D3 Dome Detector. This detector
provides three energetic particle channels: >0.6 MeV electrons, >2 MeV
electrons, and 15-40 MeV protons. These electron data are the basis for
alerts and warnings that help to mitigate satellite failures due to
spacecraft charging and to mitigate the radiation hazard encountered by
astronauts during space walks.

These three channels have had high noise levels for roughly half of each
of the last six days, resulting in the data having only minimal value.
The high noise levels occur at a time in the satellite orbit when the
detector temperatures are high, similar to a prior failure of the GOES
12 EPS D5 Dome Detector, which occurred in January, 2003.

Since 2003 with the failure of the D5 detector, the GOES 12 EPS has been
unable to provide operational proton data, and therefore has only been
used for the operational electron data. If the failure of the D3
detector becomes permanent, GOES 12 will be unable to provide any of the
operational energetic particle data.

Prior to this detector failure, GOES 12 was the primary satellite for
electron products and GOES-11 was the backup. We will now use the GOES
11 EPS for our primary electron data and use GOES 10 as the backup.
There may be a problem in the future if GOES 10 is decommissioned before
GOES 13 is put into operations. If that were to occur, there would be
no backup to the GOES 11 EPS.

I hope this helps answer your questions.... if you have more technical
questions, you can ask Terry. Out of curiosity, can you tell us what
it is that has kept you interested in space weather for years?

Cheers
Rodney



--
Rodney Viereck
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center
325 Broadway
Boulder CO 80305

303.497.7348
303.497.4006 (fax)

[email protected]