Tuesday, 25 November, 2008 | 18:38 WIB
TEMPO Interactive, Bandung:The National Space & Aviation Agency (LAPAN) is preparing personnel and a special control room to anticipate the peak of the sun cycle in October 2011 or August 2012. The peak of the activities which is marked by the many sunspots may cause a sun storm that can reach the earth.
"Likely to be affected by this phenomenon will be satellite operations, communications, flights and electrical power network," said LAPAN's Science and Aero Space Information Study deputy, Bambang Tedja Sukmana,yesterday.
Bambang explained that the sun has an 11-year cycle. The last peak of the cycle occurred in 2000. Bambang admits that, at that time, LAPAN's analysts were so busy with their monitoring that they forgot to calculate the damages due to solar emission at the height of the cycle, particularly in Indonesia. "Now, we are using the knowledge we learnt for the users' benefit," he said.
According to Bambang, the special control room in the LAPAN Bandung office will begin operations in in January 2009. There, all reports on the sun's condition from numerous observation posts in Indonesia will be gathered for further monitoring and processing.
Later, when more sunspots are visible, which means that the sun's activities are getting stronger, LAPAN will announce early warnings to all concerned, such as the Indonesian Air Force, the Transportation Department, the state-owned electricity company and the Health Department.
The peak of the sun cycle has become the attention of worlds' scientists, especially when a flare happens in the sun's atmosphere. Based on LAPAN's notes, the flare's power is equal to 66 million times more than the Hiroshima atom bomb in Japan.
Such explosion can cause radiation and toss particles from the sun down to the earth in only one or two days. "The effects cannot be prevented or minimized," said Jiyo, a LAPAN analyst in ionosphere and telecommunication.
ANWAR SISWADI
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