space weather Archives

Inouye Solar Telescope image of a solar flare on August 8, 2024. (Image credit: NSF/NSO/AURA, CC-BY)

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Radiation, Space Weather & Heliophysics, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

Transients As Determinants Of Habitability

by Keith CowingDecember 19, 2025December 19, 2025

Stellar magnetic activity, manifested through spots (faculae and flares), fundamentally shapes the exoplanets’ environments.

Surface flux density observed and modelled. The m2F12-37-2.5 (dark green) and cF13-500-3 (light green) stellar atmosphere models are plotted at coefficients Xˆ 1=1 and Xˆ 2 = 1 (the theoretical assumption of the entire stellar surface exhibiting flaring activity). For AU Mic during a flare, the red solid and orange dashed lines show the fitted model spectrum at flare maximum using coefficients from the example fit (the flare data are stated in Table A.1 in Appendix A.2). The inverse H6 model at flare maximum, pre-flare and the ‘fiducial flare’ model from Loyd et al. (2018a) with a comparable ED is plotted as blue dash-dotted, light blue dashed, and purple dashed lines, respectively. Blackbody curves for 3850 K, 6000 K, 8000 K, and 10,000 K are included in black solid, dotted, dash-dotted and dashed lines. The panchromatic AU Mic flux from Feinstein et al. (2022) is plotted in light grey. Insets highlight the FUV (lower left) and TESS (lower right) wavelength ranges. -- astro-ph.SR

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Press Release, Radiation, Space Weather & Heliophysics

Young M Dwarfs Flare Activity Model: Towards Better Exoplanetary Atmospheric Characterisation

by Keith CowingDecember 8, 2025December 8, 2025

Context. Stellar flares can significantly influence the atmospheres and habitability of orbiting exoplanets, especially around young and active M dwarfs. Understanding the temporally and spectrally resolved activity of such stars […]

Top: Same as Figure 3, but for TIC 80127634, which is a G star that exhibits high amplitude variations that is used for the water loss simulations. Left: Orbit architecture of a hypothetical Earth-like planet in a circular orbit within the HZ of TIC 80127634. The black circle shows the simulated planet orbit. The light shaded region shows the CHZ and the dark shaded region shows the larger bounds of the OHZ. Right: Percent change in the incident flux received by the hypothetical Earth-like planet. -- astro-ph.EP

Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Space Weather & Heliophysics, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

Planetary Habitability Under The Light Of A Rapidly Changing Star

by Keith CowingNovember 27, 2025

Planetary atmospheric energy budgets primarily depend on stellar incident flux. However, stellar variability can have major consequences for the evolution of planetary climates.

Scientists have captured the first detailed observations of how a superstorm compresses Earth’s plasmasphere and reveal why recovery took more than four days, affecting navigation and communication systems. CREDIT Institute for Space-Earth Environmental Research (ISEE), Nagoya University

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Habitable Zones, Magnetic Fields, Electromagnetism, bioelectricity,, Press Release, Radiation, Space Weather & Heliophysics

How Superstorm Gannon Squeezed Earth’s Plasmasphere To One-fifth Its Size

by Keith CowingNovember 21, 2025November 21, 2025

A geomagnetic superstorm is an extreme space weather event that occurs when the Sun releases massive amounts of energy and charged particles toward Earth. These storms are rare, occurring about […]

The recovery probability (successful AltaiPony detection) of injected flares in the TESS light curves of GJ 1132 (top left), TOI-2445 (top right), TRAPPIST-1 (bottom left) and the average of recovered flare durations (in minutes) and flare SNR for all three stars (bottom right). From tests on approximately 6500 injected flares per star, these heatmaps show the probability that AltaiPony detects a flare of a given duration and amplitude relative to the light curve noise. The color of each bin represents the recovery probability from 0 to 1, with black contours indicating the approximate curves of of 25%, 50%, 75% and 90% recovery probability. Although the noise levels within each stars’ light curve varies greatly, we see consistent recovery probability of flares. -- astro-ph.SR

Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Space Weather & Heliophysics, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

Stellar Flares In The TESS Light Curves Of Planet-hosting M dwarfs

by Keith CowingNovember 20, 2025November 20, 2025

M dwarfs are magnetically active stars that frequently produce flares, which have implications for both stellar evolution and exoplanet studies.

The spectrum of UV light available at Earth’s surface before the origin of life at approximately 3.9 Ga and until at least 2.9 Ga

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Origin & Evolution of Life, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

Abiogenesis On Different Star Types; a Dissipative Photochemical Perspective

by Keith CowingNovember 18, 2025November 18, 2025

The thermodynamic dissipation theory for the origin of life asserts a thermodynamic imperative for the origin of life, suggesting that the fundamental molecules of life originated as self-organized molecular photon […]

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Habitable Zones, Intelligence & Language, Magnetic Fields, Electromagnetism, bioelectricity,, Radiation, Space Weather & Heliophysics, Status Report

The Exospace Weather Frontier

by Keith CowingNovember 17, 2025

Space weather is among the most powerful and least understood forces shaping planetary atmospheres. In our Solar System, we observe its effects directly: atmospheric escape, chemical disruption, and spectacular auroral […]

Survival probability of a single planet in a binary system that initially hosted three planets, across various orbital configurations. Each panel corresponds to a specific value of the binary’s semi-major axis aB, with the x- and y-axes showing the binary’s inclination iB and eccentricity eB, respectively. Shaded regions with crosses denote dynamically unstable configurations where no planets survive, while diagonal hatches indicate stable configurations in which all three initial planets remain bound throughout the simulation. -- astro-ph.SR

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

Planetary Architectures Under The Influence Of A Stellar Binary

by Keith CowingNovember 16, 2025November 15, 2025

Context. The presence of a stellar companion can strongly influence the architecture and long-term stability of planetary systems.

This artist’s impression shows a coronal mass ejection (CME) around another star. We see these eruptions coming often from the Sun. During a CME, massive amounts of material are flung out from our star, flooding the surrounding space. These dramatic expulsions shape and drive space weather, such as the dazzling auroras we see on Earth, and can chip away at the atmospheres of any nearby planets. -- ESA larger image

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Press Release, Radiation, Space Weather & Heliophysics

First Confirmed Sighting Of Explosive Burst On Nearby Star

by Keith CowingNovember 13, 2025November 13, 2025

The atmosphere-stripping ability of the CME is an exciting discovery for our hunt for life around other stars.

An artist's rendition of the two ESCAPADE satellites in orbit around Mars. -- NASA

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Magnetic Fields, Electromagnetism, bioelectricity,, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Mars, Missions & Hardware, Press Release, Space Weather & Heliophysics

NASA’s ESCAPADE Mission To Mars — Twin UC Berkeley Satellites Will Launch In Early November

by Keith CowingNovember 7, 2025November 7, 2025

The first dual-satellite mission to another planet, NASA’s ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers), is scheduled for launch no earlier than Sunday, Nov. 9, from Cape Canaveral, Florida. […]