Italy launches space weather database

(ANSA) - Rome, February 16 - Scientists presented Italy's first space weather database at the Italian Space Agency in Rome on Tuesday.
    The instrument developed by the department of physics at Tor Vergata university is intended to help forecast potentially damaging solar storms.
    "Solar activity is not constant, but can vary suddenly, sending large quantities of particles towards Earth," physicist Francesco Berrilli said.
    "This represents a real danger for our technology that cannot be avoided, but which can be contained if we learn to forecast it," he explained. The Tor Vergata space weather database aims to collate incoming telescope and satellite data and simplify it for use by interested parties, for example pilots on flight routes around the poles.