On Wednesday, Mike Simmons spoke with Dr. Dale Gary of the Extended Owen's Solar Array. Different from his counterparts at the Big Bear Solar Observatory, Dr. Gary studies radiating radio waves from the sun by capturing them through a small array nested in larger dishes. Both institutions are run by the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Radio emissions have been detected for about a century now, but never known to be as harmful. The solar event in 2006 our Global Positioning System was interrupted. This event has prompted scientists to further investigate these phenomena.

The sun's radiation were once thought to destroy communication between our wireless devices and the satellites. What really happens is that there is so much radiation emitted from the sun that it floods the area between Earth and sun so that our GPS cannot distinguish between solar waves and satellite waves.

Dr. Gary says that they are currently studying the various frequencies at which the sun radiates in order to find one that will not interfere with GPS communications so that this confusion will not happen during future storms.

As far as dangers for our astronauts, Dr. Gary pointed out that during a Corona Mass Ejection (CME), they may be subjected to a packet of magnetic field that can break off of the sun's atmosphere and travel toward Earth. When this bubble interacts with our atmosphere, it creates a shock with high radiation and can therefore be a concern for those floating in space.

Thanks to Dr. Gary for his time an brief description of his work at EOSA! For more information, please visit the EOVSA website and watch the full story at AWB's YouTube archive.