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 Has anyone of our astronauts ever been in a solor storm? Emily (FWMS)

Emily -

Great question! I had to look it up myself!

Yes, the astronauts on the International Space Station are in solar storms

from time to time. For example, October 2005, the sun was extremely active

and pelted the earth for weeks. NASA monitors the radiation levels to make sure that its

safe enough, and the hull of the ISS does a pretty good job shielding the astronauts

from the protons etc.   Amazingly, the magnetic fields in a CME actually cause a drop in cosmic

rays for the astronauts.  So, in a sense, being inside a CME is a good thing! 

- Peter

Hi Emily,

I think we have been lucky and none of our astronauts have been in a solar storm. Since the space station is protected by Earth's magnetic field, it mostly shields astronauts from solar storms. And when we went to the moon, it was around the time of solar minimum, so there were not many solar storms at the time. However, there was one very large solar storm that occurred in between trips to the moon. You can read more about that in this article:

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/27jan_solarflares.htm

Laura