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Sci Tech
Safe from solar wind
JAMES RANDERSON
Warding off enemy action may not be a priority for future plans to send astronauts back to the moon and to Mars, but engineers and scientists will need to protect people on long-term missions from the solar wind — a stream of high-energy charged particles from the sun.
Drawing their inspiration from science fiction, a team of UK researchers are using a scaled-down version of the solar wind in the lab to study how to use magnetic shielding to keep astronauts safe.
“We now have actual measurements that show a cavity or ‘hole’ in the solar wind could be created in which a spacecraft could sit, affording some protection from ‘ion storms’,” said Dr Ruth Bamford, a physicist at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Chilton, Oxfordshire.
The question has come up because of an international plan to return to the moon and send astronauts further into space. President George Bush has committed the U.S. to a return trip to the moon by 2020 and the aim is ultimately to send people on an eight-month voyage to Mars.
Protecting crews from radiation will be essential because it causes mutations to their DNA that can result in cancer.
Protective cover
The team has taken a tip from our own planet. The Earth’s magnetic field produces a protective magnetosphere around the planet which deflects charged particles in the solar wind. “We wouldn’t have life on Earth if we were fully exposed to radiation from the sun,” she said.
The team simulated the solar wind by using an intense beam of charged high-energy particles. They placed a powerful magnet in the beam to investigate how effective it was at deflecting it. Sure enough, the pinky glow of the plasma beam curved around the magnet just as predicted.
— Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008
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