Public wanted for Stormwatch

Scientists launch Solar Stormwatch to ask public for help in understanding the sun

A new web project where anyone can help track solar storms and be involved in the latest solar research is being launched today, Tuesday 22 February 2010. Solar Stormwatch is a partnership between STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, The Royal Observatory, Greenwich (ROG) and Zooniverse, a network of online Citizen Science projects.

The Sun is much more dynamic than it appears in our sky. Intense magnetic fields churn and pummel the Sun’s atmosphere and they store enormous amounts of energy that, when released, hurl billions of tons of material out into space in explosions called Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) – or solar storms.

By looking at the Solar Stormwatch website, volunteers can spot these storms and track their progress across space towards the Earth. Such storms can be harmful to astronauts in orbit and have the potential to knock out communication satellites, disrupt mobile phone networks and damage power lines. With the public’s help, Solar Stormwatch will allow solar scientists to better understand these potentially dangerous storms and help to forecast their arrival time at Earth.

Julia Wilkinson, a Solar Stormwatch user said, “The fact that any Solar Stormwatch volunteer could make a brand new discovery about our neighbouring star is very cool indeed. All you need is a computer and an interest in finding out more about what the sun is really like.”

Dr. Chris Davis, one of the STFC scientists behind Solar Stormwatch said of the project, “The more people who can take part in Solar Stormwatch, the more we will know about solar storms. Collective measurements by many people are worth much more than the subjective opinion of one person.”

The project uses real data from NASA’s STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) spacecraft, a pair of satellites in orbit around the Sun which give scientists a constant eye on the ever-changing solar surface. The UK has a major input in STEREO, providing the two widest-field instruments, the Heliospheric Imagers, which provide Solar Stormwatch with its data. Each imager has two cameras helping STEREO stare across the 150 million kilometres from the Earth to the Sun.

Solar Stormwatch is the latest chapter in a long history of solar research at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, dating back to the 1870’s, when the Observatory housed a photoheliograph, a telescope that took daily photos of the Sun to track sunspots. Visitors will be able to see this telescope again when the Altazimuth Pavilion at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, reopens in March 2010.

View the Solar Stormwatch (link opens in a new window) website.

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Notes to editors

For studio quality and interviews at short notice, the ROG's and Rutherford Appleton Laboratory’s ISDN lines are available.

Contacts

For further information or to arrange interviews please contact:

• Lucy Stone
  Press Officer
  STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
  Tel: +44 (0)1235 445627
  Mobile: +44(0)7920 870125
  
  
• Colin Stuart
  National Maritime Museum Press Office
  Tel: +44 (0)208 3126790 / 6732 / 6545
  Mobile: +44(0)7903 547284

Contacts for media interviews

• Dr. Chris Davis
  Project Scientist, STEREO Heliospheric Imagers
  STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
  Tel: +44 (0)1235 446710
  
  
• Dr. Marek Kukula
  Public Astronomer, Royal Observatory, Greenwich
  (Please contact through the National Maritime Press Office)
  
  
• Julia Wilkinson
  A Solar Stormwatch member who has taken up an Open University degree in astronomy on the back of participation in previous astronomy citizen science projects.
  Tel: +44 (0)797 0452828

Citizen Science

Citizen Science is a movement where scientists harness a vast network of volunteers to help analyse scientific data. This mass participation allows scientists to untangle data that it would take much longer, or be impossible to analyse otherwise. In other cases the human eye and brain are much more adept at making subjective decisions than computers and so are better suited to more finely detailed observations. The Citizen Science Alliance, led by Dr. Chris Lintott, brings together an international team of scientists, software developers and educators to continue to build on previous Citizen Science success. Solar Stormwatch is part of the Zooniverse (link opens in a new window) network of projects. The first Zooniverse project, Galaxy Zoo, involved more than 250,000 people in classifying galaxies for a team of astronomers.

Solar Stormwatch

Solar Stormwatch is one of the flagship elements of Solar Season at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, a series of events in early 2010 designed to put the Sun in the spotlight. Complimenting Solar Stormwatch is Solar Story: Understanding the Sun an exhibition charting human’s continuing quest to understand their nearest star. Visitors to the Peter Harrison Planetarium can also catch Secrets of the Sun, a new show revealing the Sun to be far from a docile sphere in the sky.

The Royal Observatory, Greenwich

The Royal Observatory, Greenwich is the home of Greenwich Mean Time and the Prime Meridian and one of the most important historic scientific sites in the world. Since its founding in 1675, Greenwich has been at the centre of the measurement of time and space. Visitors can stand in both the eastern and western hemispheres simultaneously by placing their feet either side of the Prime Meridian line. Today the Observatory galleries and Peter Harrison Planetarium help unravel the extraordinary phenomena of time, space and astronomy.

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