Weather in space now for all to see
By Liang Chao (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-07-02 01:06

The National Space Weather Monitoring and Warning Centre officially went operational Thursday in Beijing.

"This means space weather forecasting mainly for space security has moved out of its field of research and into a public service role," an unnamed official at the centre said.

Using weather satellites to gain information about the space environment by watching solar activity, the magnetosphere and ionosphere, the centre is capable of following and predicting sudden burst of bad space weather.

Space weather refers to sun activity, geomagnetic storms and the amount of protons -- a basic and subatomic particle -- that are in the solar wind, which is a fast stream of gases that are ejected by the Sun.

The centre will also develop new monitoring techniques, early warning methods and models for space weather.

Zhang Jun, deputy director of the National Satellite Meteorological Centre under the China Meteorological Administration (CMA), said "the centre will offer free services for the prevention of space accidents, communication, navigation and the security of ground facilities of weather satellites, as well as human life on Earth."

Although China's space weather prediction programme only started in the late 1990s, it will assist the nation in its push for further space exploitation, according to insiders.

Space weather affects the capability and reliability of space or land-based technological systems and the daily life of humans.

Space tempests like solar flares can cause breakdowns in satellites, communications, navigational equipment and power grids.

Such space hazards can also threaten human heath and wreaking havoc on society, experts have warned.

Solar activity may affect people more than first thought. For instance, a powerful solar-radiation storm can blast people in a plane at a high altitude with the rough equivalent of as many as 100 chest X-rays.

However, this is likely to happen less than once every 11 years, when the sun's storm activity peaks.

China has, since 1988, successfully put four polar orbiting meteorological satellites and two geostationary weather satellites into orbit.

Three more satellites are scheduled to be launched before 2010 with research under way on the second generation of polar-orbiting satellites.

The space weather can be seen by clicking onto www.spaceweather.gov.cn .

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