00:00 On this day in space.
00:03 In 1967, NASA launched the Pioneer 8 spacecraft on a mission to study the sun.
00:08 Pioneer 8 was the third in a series of solar-orbiting satellites that NASA launched to observe things like the solar wind,
00:13 the sun's magnetic fields, and cosmic rays, or high-energy particles from outside the solar system.
00:18 The Pioneer missions provided the world's first network of satellites that could monitor space weather and solar storms,
00:23 which can cause amazing auroras on Earth, but can also cause some problems.
00:27 Space weather events can scramble satellite communication systems on Earth, and even damage power grids.
00:33 And that's what happened on this day in space.
00:36 [LST-107]
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