Space weather isn’t just about lovely displays of the aurora. There is a very real impact on our technology too.

Proud to have contributed to the new SCOSTEP roadmap for 2026–30! SCOSTEP = the global body coordinating research on Sun–Earth connections. The new programme, COURSE, lays out the scientific priorities for the next 5 years. Exciting times ahead for heliophysics! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Proud to see ESA’s Vigil mission featured in the CRO Forum’s new report on space-related risks. From L5, Vigil will boost early warning for solar storms — a key step for protecting critical infrastructure on Earth ☀️💨🛰️🌍 📄 thecroforum.org/wp-content/u...

Here's a picture of me *not* driving an imaginary car 🚗 — but explaining how the consistent, calibrated nature of Vigil’s ☀️💨🛰️🌍data products will make them ideal for training and deployment with machine learning and AI forecasting tools. In ESWW2025 TDM13: events.spacepole.be/event/222/se...

Oooh, quite an exciting result ahead of the SMILE mission - it will be able to remotely observe and track solar wind composition. academic.oup.com/rasti/advanc... #heliophysics

I like making confuse-o-grams that include *all* the details. Help me make this more confusing - what can I add that I'm missing?

🎉Happy Hamilton Day! Sir William Hamilton gave us Hamiltonian mechanics⚙️ His formulation H=T+V underpins orbital dynamics, spacecraft trajectories, and plasma physics No Hamiltonian Mechanics→No knowledge of L5 Lagrange point→No perfect spot for a space-weather mission-ESA’s Vigil🌞💨🌍

Fantastic few days at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies with the brilliant Peter Gallagher — great discussions on #AI and ESA’s #Vigil mission. Exciting times ahead: AI forecasting will be helping us very soon! 🌞🤖

Tagging this so the #heliophysics feed picks it up!

In a recent HAO/NCAR Colloquium, Philip G. Judge explained the context and motivation of his recent study on "Changing Methodologies in Solar Physics". #SolarPhysics 300, 84 (2025). doi.org/10.1007/s112... #OpenAccess youtu.be/YwFgM7XEtJs

Another day, another solar and heliophysics first — @ORB_KSB and @esa.int have created a unique eclipse in space! 🌍☀️🌘 The first formation-flying coronagraph: two spacecraft flying 150 m apart, perfectly aligned to block the Sun and reveal its hot corona. Find out more: www.esa.int/Enabling_Sup...

Solar astronomer @stephyardley.bsky.social joins BBC Science in Action this week to explain why the new polar views of the Sun, from ESA's Solar Orbiter, will make such a difference in unravelling the Sun's magnetic turmoil and what drives the 11-yr cycle in activity. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w...

Pleased as PUNCH -pardon the pun(CH) to see these amazing images - led by the great @drzowie.bsky.social - the first full sky heliospheric images from PUNCH capturing a couple of eruptions - The next generation of space weather heliospheric instrumentation will be polarized like PUNCH - #trendsetter

Just to reiterate. This is the FIRST 🥇view of the solar poles. This is astonishing and shows what we, humans, can achieve

This is a new tool to look at @science.esa.int #SolarOrbiter imaging data (or data from other missions) and the field of views of different instruments. hpa.esa.int/hpa/#/home

Looking at X-ray Flux Monitors today—instruments that detect solar X-ray bursts. They're used in #SpaceWeather☀️☔ studies, helping understand solar☀️flares that can disrupt comms📡, satellites & aviation✈️. Attached an X-ray light curve from 2014 showing confined flares- with no associated eruptions

The National Solar Observatory's 4-meter Inouye Solar Telescope, funded by NSF, just discovered something new on the Sun: magnetic striations only a few tens of kilometers across, which affect the Texas-sized granules that carry solar energy to the surface (to become sunlight)! ☀️🧪🔭⚛️

The Sun 🌞 — our source of space weather ☔ — needs constant watching. Who knows what it’ll throw at us next? @ESA #Vigil ☀️👁️‍🗨️🌍. imgs.xkcd.com/comics/check...

Wrapping up another fascinating @ESA #Vigil👁️‍🗨 instrument day — at Leonardo S.p.A. Florence Italy — focused on the Vigil Heliospheric Imager. HI will be instrumental (pun intended) in tracking Coronal Mass Ejections💨 & space weather☔ from Sun🌞 to Earth🌍. Heres a representative STEREO HI image Jun 2011

Great connection here! Indeed there is an aurora producing storm happening www.swpc.noaa.gov, though will likely have passed by this evening US time.

Such lovely detail! Zoom in and discover the varied features of the Sun’s atmosphere.

🛰️ 🛰️ ☀️ #Proba3 is now officially the world’s first precision formation flying mission! The mission team has achieved the desired precision – with the two spacecraft maintaining their relative position down to less than a millimetre while flying 150 metres apart! www.esa.int/Enabling_Sup...

Amazing clarity from the NSF-funded Goode Solar Telescope at Big Bear Solar Observatory! ☀️🔭🧪

Just wrapped up a fascinating day at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen, discussing the Photospheric Magnetic Imager for the @esa #Vigil mission — including a tour of the facilities where both it will be and the Solar Orbiter PHI instrument were developed.

Professor Jonathan Eastwood, lead for the @esa #Vigil MAG instrument, delivers his @ImperialCollegeLDN Inaugural Lecture: 🎓 Watch here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw6X...

It's a good day to pitch our ongoing #PUNCH open-access article collection in the journal #SolarPhysics: "The Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) Mission: An Overview" link.springer.com/collections/...

It is a fine morning here in Denver though I am still groggy from taking the 5am flight from California. NYT has a great article on SPHEREx and PUNCH. Thanks, Katrina Miller! ☀️🔭🛰️🚀😎

The attacks on universities are speeding up, not slowing down The university sector *must* band together and stop acquiescing in advance (looking at you Columbia) bsky.app/profile/wsj....

at @AirbusintheUK for the @esa.int #Vigil Instrument Day to discuss the 6 instruments going 🚀 to L5 (side of the Sun-Earth line ☀️-🌍): Compact Coronagraph (CCOR); Heliospheric Imager (HI); Plasma Analyzer (PLA); Magnetometer (MAG); Photospheric Magnetic Field Imager (PMI); EUV Imager (JEDI)

Attending Max Alexander’s exhibition ‘Life in the Sun’s Atmosphere’ at #Lloyds of London: www.lloyds.com/about-lloyds.... Lloyd’s highlights extreme space weather risks—latest scenario shows potential $2.4trn global loss. The #ESA Vigil mission will help mitigate this

You can use this link, for those refusing to install the app: www.facebook.com/off_facebook...

Lovely Leiden in the fog

Mickey the space cat, the big boss at #esa #estec, judging me for going home and depriving him of ear massages

Hey University students, want to learn more about #SpaceWeather 🚀☔? You're still in time to apply for #ESA's Space Weather Training Course in Belgium. Details found here: www.esa.int/Education/ES...

I seem to have crossed the 1k mark, so time to re-introduce. I designed the #heliophysics feed, & do a lot of that. I like image processing, open science, and instruments & space. I once chaired the AAS/SPD; now lead NASA's PUNCH mission (T -50d). I like sharing the wonder of cool science. ☀️🔭🧪🛰️⚛️😎

☀️Just wanted to share a paper that was just published by a student, Syed Ayaz, on kinetic Alfven waves in the corona. Important for understanding how plasmas is heated and accelerated from the Sun: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

PUNCH's FOV is 90°, centered on the Sun. We'll image the interface between the solar corona and the solar wind that fills the heliosphere (and sweeps over Earth!) starting next spring. That's huge. Here it is in the context of the 2017 total solar eclipse. Not a telescope. punch.space.swri.edu 🧪🔭🛰️

Myself, @dbseaton.bsky.social and a few others are preparing for an International Space Science Institute #issi team meeting to discuss Models and Observations of the Middle Corona, see more details here: teams.issibern.ch/middlecorona/ and here: middlecorona.com/issi_meeting...