Science and Exploration

Seismic Monitoring of the Sun’s Far Hemisphere: A Crucial Component in Future Space Weather Forecasting

By Keith Cowing
Press Release
astro-ph.IM
October 17, 2022
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Seismic Monitoring of the Sun’s Far Hemisphere: A Crucial Component in Future Space Weather Forecasting
SDO/AIA image of NOAA AR12781 in He II λ304- Å radiation releasing an M4.7- class flare from the Sun’s east limb on 2020-11-29 after a full solar rotation since its birth in the east far hemisphere. Once the active region began its second transit of the near hemisphere, NOAA redesignated it AR12790. astro-ph.IM

The purpose of this white paper is to put together a coherent vision for the role of helioseismic monitoring of magnetic activity in the Sun’s far hemisphere that will contribute to improving space weather forecasting as well as fundamental research in the coming decade.

Our goal fits into the broader context of helioseismology in solar research for any number of endeavors when helioseismic monitors may be the sole synoptic view of the Sun’s far hemisphere. It is intended to foster a growing understanding of solar activity, as realistically monitored in both hemispheres, and its relationship to all known aspects of the near-Earth and terrestrial environment.

Some of the questions and goals that can be fruitfully pursued through seismic monitoring of farside solar activity in the coming decade include: What is the relationship between helioseismic signatures and their associated magnetic configurations, and how is this relationship connected to the solar EUV irradiance over the period of a solar rotation?; How can helioseismic monitoring contribute to data-driven global magnetic-field models for precise space weather forecasting?; What can helioseismic monitors tell us about prospects of a flare, CME or high-speed stream that impacts the terrestrial environment over the period of a solar rotation?; How does the inclusion of farside information contribute to forecasts of interplanetary space weather and the environments to be encountered by human crews in interplanetary space? Thus, it is crucial for the development of farside monitoring of the Sun be continued into the next decade either through ground-based or space-borne observations.

White Paper Submitted to the Decadal Survey for Solar and Space Physics (Heliophysics) — SSPH 2024-2033)
Kiran Jain, C. Lindsey, E. Adamson, C. N. Arge, T. E. Berger, D. C. Braun, R. Chen, Y. M. Collado-Vega, M. Dikpati, T. Felipe, C. J. Henney, J. T. Hoeksema, R. W. Komm, K. D. Leka, A. R. Marble, V. Martinez Pillet, M. Miesch, L. J. Nickisch, A. A. Pevtsov, V. J. Pizzo, W. K. Tobiska, S. C. Tripathy, J. Zhao

Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
Cite as: arXiv:2210.01291 [astro-ph.IM] (or arXiv:2210.01291v1 [astro-ph.IM] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2210.01291
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Submission history
From: Kiran Jain
[v1] Tue, 4 Oct 2022 00:31:34 UTC (496 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.01291

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SpaceRef co-founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.