Formosat-5, Taiwan’s first domestically designed and built satellite, detected the most intense solar flares in 12 years on Wednesday last week and on Monday, National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) associate professor Lin Chien-hung (林建宏) said yesterday.
Harmful radiation from a solar flare cannot pass through Earth’s atmosphere, but the radiation, when intense enough, can disturb a layer of the atmosphere where GPS and communications signals travel, NASA said on Wednesday.
“About three weeks ago, a group of sunspots mushroomed on the sun’s surface,” Lin said. “Their magnetic force is strong, but unstable, causing solar flares and particles to erupt outward.”
Fortunately the two flares did not strike the Earth directly, or they would have created a stronger geomagnetic storm that could last for several days, he said.
The first flare was classified as an X9.3-class flare, which traveled at between 700km and 800km per second, but its effect was minor, Lin said.
The second flare was classified as an X8.2-class flare that could create a minor geomagnetic storm on Earth today, he said.
Thanks to Formosat-5, which was launched on Aug. 25, researchers can collect more data about space weather and make forecasts, he said.
Formosat-5 can observe changes to the ionosphere using its Advanced Ionospheric Probe (AIP), which was designed by National Central University’s professor Chao Chi-kuang (趙吉光) and is superior to Formosat-1’s AIP designed in the US, Lin said.
Lin is a member of NCKU’s Lithosphere, Atmosphere, Space Coupling Laboratory, which began working with the US National Center for Atmospheric Research in April this year.
“The US center hopes to obtain preliminary results from Formosat-5 before the launch of Formosat-7 next year,” Lin said, adding that the US National Weather Service and the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts pay close attention to Taiwan’s progress in space technology.
Formosat-7 is a collaborative program between Taiwan and the US, with its parts and database made by Taiwan’s National Space Organization (NSPO) and its antennae by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, as the latter hopes to keep some information confidential, Lin said.
NSPO officials and Lin’s team are to participate in the International Radio Occultation Working Group’s meeting about Formosat-7 in the US next week, he said.
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
RSS