iPhone gets space weather app

Nasa has developed an iPhone application for those who want to know all about the weather in space, reports Biz Journals.

The free space weather app lets users see real-time solar-event images, data, model simulations and forecasts that could have an effect on the near-Earth space environment.

Scientists at Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Centre began developing the app 18 months ago. It debuted on iTunes earlier this month.

According to Eureka Alert, Nasa's new iPhone application couldn't have come at a better time.

A few hours before a gigantic bubble of electrified gas and charged particles erupted from the Sun, Nasa officially released the new space weather app making images and other data almost immediately available to users.

"The timing was perfect," says Antti Pulkkinen, a scientist at the Community Coordinated Modelling Centre (CCMC).

The multi-agency organisation researches and develops models to help scientists better forecast space weather.

The eruption triggered a run at the iTunes store. Within just a couple days, 1 500 users had already downloaded the application, making it one of the store's 20 most popular in the weather category, says Marlo Maddox, CCMC's deputy director for operations and one of the Goddard computer scientists who helped develop the program.