Where space weather originates

Where space weather originates
by Erica Marchand
Paris, France (SPX) May 09, 2024

The Virtual Space Weather Modelling Centre, through a collaborative effort, has developed a simulation that visualizes the initiation of space weather. The model demonstrates the emergence of a flux rope from the Sun's magnetic field, which may carry millions of tons of plasma into space during a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME).

This visualization uses the COCONUT magnetohydrodynamic model created by the team at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, recently highlighted in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. The model accurately represents the early stages of a CME within a realistic environment of the solar corona and wind, based on actual magnetograms.

Coronal Mass Ejections are among the most significant eruptive events in the Solar System, capable of reaching speeds exceeding hundreds of kilometers per second. When aligned with Earth, these events can disrupt our magnetic field, affecting both orbital satellites and terrestrial infrastructure for power and communications.

Space weather forecasting, similar to its terrestrial counterpart, relies on integrating observational data into sophisticated models. However, space weather models must encompass the entire Solar System, beginning just above the Sun's surface and extending through the vast heliosphere to include interactions with Earth's and other planets' magnetic fields.

Gregoire Deprez, an ESA space environment and effects engineer, described the extensive modeling network: "These are all different models with different physics and different data going in and out of these models. The goal with our Virtual Space Weather Modelling Centre is to have all of them coupled together, working in a chain, accessible through a single web portal. They're made to run and talk together, with data moving on from one through to the next. We have a whole chain of models that start from the Sun, the solar magnetosphere then propagated down to Earth or your spacecraft of interest."

The establishment of the VSWMC was initially supported by ESA's General Support Technology Programme to advance promising space technologies and continues under the Space Weather Office as part of ESA's Space Safety Programme.

The project receives funding from KU Leuven, Belspo, the EU's H2020 EUHFORIA 2.0 project, and ESA via GSTP (ESA Contract No. 4000133080/20/NL/CRS), which focuses on integrating comprehensive MHD coronal models to simulate flux rope CMEs and other heliospheric phenomena.