New research aims to forecast 'extreme space weather' to protect Earth

This screenshot of an animation shows the beginning of two clusters of CMEs that occurred in 2017. (Credit: SDO/AIA +SOHO/LASCO COR1+COR2)

TORONTO — New research is helping scientists to improve their weather forecasting — in space.

The results of a new study, described this week in the Astrophysical Journal, look at the main cause of dramatic space weather events: fast coronal mass ejections (CME).

CMEs are huge flares of magnetized material that periodically shoot out into space from the outer atmosphere of the Sun at speeds of up to 3,500 kilometres per second.

These clouds of plasma and magnetic energy aren’t just an interesting space phenomenon. They have the potential to cause huge geomagnetic storms, which can pose a danger to not only astronauts in space, but also to technology and communications on Earth.

This new study, which looked at two solar cycles, found that the “strongest and most intense geomagnetic storms” occurred when fast CMEs interacted with at least one other CME in clusters, and occurred in sequence from the same active region of the Sun.

The study itself suggested that this “may be related to CME-CME interaction producing a more complex and stronger interaction with Earth's magnetosphere.”

“Understanding the characteristics of extreme solar eruptions and extreme space weather events can help us better understand the dynamics and variability of the Sun as well as the physical mechanisms behind these events,” Dr. Jenny Marcela Rodríguez Gómez, a scientist at the Skoltech Space Center and one of the authors of the study, said in a news release.

An animation visualizing two space weather events from 2017 shows large white plumes, representing the CMEs, exploding out into space from the surface of the Sun in lightning-quick bursts. This specific event forced astronauts on the International Space Station to move to a special shelter within the station to protect themselves from the radiation emitted by the solar flare.

The news release on the study explained that one of the largest space weather events to have occurred in our solar system was in 1859, when a geomagnetic storm crashed the entire telegraph system in North America and Europe, which was the predominant form of communication across distances at that time.

“If such an event occurs today, then modern devices are in no way protected,” the release stated. “We may find ourselves without electricity, television, Internet, radio communications which would lead to significant and cascading effects in many areas of our life.”

Solar activity has a cycle to it. At the peak of the cycle, there may be a higher number of solar flares and CME activity occurring, but during the descending phase of a cycle, energy can accumulate before being released in more extreme, one-off space weather cluster events, the press release said.

Although we are currently entering a new, 11-year cycle of solar activity that scientists predict will be mild, there still could be extreme solar events in the second half of the cycle.

“Therefore, our modern technological society needs take this seriously, study extreme space weather events, and also understand all the subtleties of the interactions between the Sun and the Earth,” Tatiana Podladchikova, assistant professor at the Skoltech Space Center and research co-author, said in the press release.

“And whatever storms may rage, we wish everyone […] good weather in space.”