Space is a dangerous place, especially when it comes to high-energy particles, and intense solar activity can pose a threat to people and technology on Earth. To address the potential hazard, NASA allocated five years of funding to CLEAR, the University of Michigan Center for Space Weather Prediction.

The sun is not silent at all. Its surface boils at over 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit (5,500 Celsius); Complex electric and magnetic fields twist, twist, and move in and out of the depths. This complex relationship between the Sun’s superheated plasma and its own magnetic fields creates the conditions for solar storms. These events, including flares, explosions, and coronal mass ejections, release enormous amounts of energy into the Solar System.

Sometimes the emissions are in the form of pure radiation. Sometimes entire chunks of solar material fly off the surface and slowly move towards the planets. But often the Sun releases storms of tiny charged particles known as solar particles (SEPs), electrons and protons that move at nearly the speed of light.

SEPs can be very effective indeed. During periods of intense solar activity, SEPs can strike the Earth, suppress its magnetic field, and even pierce the atmosphere, releasing lethal radiation to the surface. Everything in space is particularly vulnerable. Electronic parts may fall over and sensors may be damaged.

A powerful event could exceed an astronaut’s lifetime radiation dose. Indeed, radiation damage is considered one of the biggest obstacles to long-term space travel, as SEPs can damage DNA and lead to cancer; This is a problem we must solve if we want regular human missions to Mars and beyond.

The incredible speed of SEPs allows them to reach Earth orbit within minutes, meaning we have little warning of a SEP storm. Recognizing the seriousness of the problem, NASA recently awarded a five-year grant to a group of researchers at the University of Michigan to establish the CLEAR Space Weather Center of Excellence, which will focus on providing accurate and timely space weather forecasts for SEP storm warnings. events

The CLEAR Center will bring together astronomers and astrophysicists with a wide range of expertise, from observers to theorists, to solve the SEP prediction problem. They will use theoretical models of the solar surface to predict when solar flares and coronal mass ejections that trigger SEPs might erupt.

There are currently 36 models used by various groups. Some of these, based solely on known physics, are very accurate but expensive to operate; especially in real time, where every minute counts. So even if we observe a coronal mass ejection, we will have enough time to estimate the strength of the SEP storm when it reaches Earth.

Another approach is to use characteristics of past storms to predict when a new storm will arrive. These machine learning methods are much faster because they use simple algorithms to determine whether the right conditions occur on the Sun’s surface. But they are currently much less accurate and less reliable because the algorithms don’t “know” the underlying physics; they are simply trying to match observed conditions with the probability of an SEP storm eruption.

With CLEAR, space weather forecasters hope to combine these two approaches. The goal is to build faster and more efficient physics-based models and use them to improve historical models, resulting in an efficient pipeline that can use real-time data from the sun to provide fast and accurate predictions of SEP storm events. NASA can then release these forecasts to warn satellite operators and human spaceflight missions of the impending threat, thereby helping all space activities mitigate the damage caused by these storms. Source