NASAさんのインスタグラム写真 - (NASAInstagram)「The Sun has entered a new cycle. Meet a few people whose everyday lives are affected by this ebb & flow of solar activity. 1️⃣ Chris Ratzlaff, Alberta aurora chaser: Mid-latitude aurora photographers are intimately familiar with the solar cycle. For us, the solar cycle means the difference between being able to catch the aurora once or twice a month during solar maximum, or seeing it only a few times a year during solar minimum (and knowing that we have a few years to wait until we're regularly staying up well past our bedtimes again 😉). 2️⃣ John Phillips, professor of biological sciences at Virginia Tech: Migratory birds were the first animals in which a magnetic sense was discovered. When you navigate over shorter distances (less than about 60 miles), temporal variation in the magnetic field — the kind caused by solar storms — can cause significant errors in estimates of geographic position. For example, in some studies departure directions of homing pigeons appeared to vary with fluctuations in Earth’s magnetic field. 3️⃣ Bob Arritt, technical executive at the Electric Power Research Institute: We work with utilities to build the research that will prepare the power system to handle a geomagnetic disturbance event. When you’re in solar minimum and there’s not much solar activity, it’s a good time to continue with research and implement these findings — which we’re doing — and when you get to solar max, there’s much more awareness. 4️⃣ Notanee Bourassa, aurora chaser: Watching the activity on the Sun can save me gas money instead of blindly driving out of the city into the dark countryside when aurora might not be likely. It was economically necessary for me to learn about the solar cycle and how it operates and interacts with Earth. 5️⃣ Bo Lowrey, ham radio operator: During solar minimum, the ionosphere is not as electrically charged as much as it is during solar maximum, and so does not reflect low-frequency radio waves very well. Your contact distance is greatly reduced. There are hour-to-hour variations in the distance you can communicate during solar maximum. Image credits: 1: Chris Ratzlaff 2: Pixabay 3: Bob Arritt 4: Tara Funk 5: Bo Lowrey」9月19日 1時51分