space weather Archives

Temporal medians of ’Extreme’, ’Moderate’, and ’Quiescent’ simulations for Temperature (T in K). Medians are taken from 8 years and for (a) 1.223 × 10−5 mbar and (b) 0.008 mbar atmospheric levels. Extreme and Moderate medians are only taken for days when flares occur. Stippling uses a two-tailed Wilcoxon rank-sum test to represent ’Extreme’ and ’Moderate’ areas that are not statistically different from the ’Quiescent’ one at p

Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Space Weather & Heliophysics, Status Report, Stellar Cartography, TRAPPIST-1, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Effects of Transient Stellar Emissions On Planetary Climates Of Tidally-locked Exo-earths

by Keith CowingMay 7, 2025May 7, 2025

Space weather events in planetary environments sourced from transient host star emissions, including stellar flares, coronal mass ejections, and stellar proton events, can substantially influence an exoplanet’s climate and atmospheric […]

Sketch of the magnetospheric interaction in the TRAPPIST-1–TRAPPIST-1e system. The stellar wind velocity and IMF streamlines are drawn in green and white, respectively. The M dwarf star is shown as a yellow sphere, and the planet TRAPPIST-1e as a blue shaded circle. The planetary magnetic field lines (white) exhibit compression on the dayside and extension into a magnetotail. A bow shock structure forms upstream of the planet under a super-Alfvénic regime. The color scale represents normalized plasma density. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Space Weather & Heliophysics, Status Report, TRAPPIST-1

MHD Simulations Preliminarily Predict The Habitability and Radio Emission of TRAPPIST-1e

by Keith CowingApril 24, 2025April 24, 2025

As the closest Earth-like exoplanet within the habitable zone of the M-dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, TRAPPIST-1e exhibits a magnetic field topology that is dependent on space weather conditions.

Coronal mass ejection, June 2013 -- NASA

Astronomy & Telescopes, Habitable Zones, Radiation, Space Weather & Heliophysics, Status Report

Temporal Variation of Flare Occurrence Rates via the Spot Evolution on the Sun and Solar-type Stars

by Keith CowingApril 18, 2025April 18, 2025

The spot evolution on the Sun and solar-type stars is important for understanding the nature of consequential flaring activity.

In 2016, scientists discovered that water is released from the Moon during meteor showers. When a speck of comet debris strikes the moon, it vaporizes on impact, creating a shock wave in the lunar soil. With a sufficiently large impactor, this shock wave can breach the soil’s dry upper layer and release water molecules from a hydrated layer below. NASA’s LADEE spacecraft detected these water molecules as they entered the tenuous lunar atmosphere. Download here: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20278/ NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Impact events, Meteorites & Asteroids, Moon, Press Release, Space Weather & Heliophysics

The Solar Wind Can Apparently Make Water On The Lunar Surface

by Keith CowingApril 16, 2025April 16, 2025

Scientists have hypothesized since the 1960s that the Sun is a source of ingredients that form water on the Moon. When a stream of charged particles known as the solar […]

At the left, an enhanced-color image of Neptune from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. At the right, that image is combined with data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The cyan splotches, which represent auroral activity, and white clouds, are data from Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec), overlayed on top of the full image of the planet from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3. - STSCI

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Ice Giant, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Neptune, People Of Astrobiology, Press Release, Radiation, Space Weather & Heliophysics

Webb Space Telescope Captures Neptune’s Auroras For First Time

by Keith CowingApril 4, 2025May 12, 2025

For the first time, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured bright auroral activity on Neptune. Auroras occur when energetic particles, often originating from the Sun, become trapped in a […]

Selected spectra of Teegarden’s star around the Hα line to demonstrate the line shape during quiescent phases and all flares. The spectra of activity level (1) are shown in green, of activity level (2) in blue, and of activity level (3) in red. The flare spectra are shown in magenta. There are a few spectra showing peculiar line shapes with broad additional line components either in absorption or emission (cyan lines). The dashed vertical line marks the central wavelength of Hα. The normalisation wavelength intervals are located well outside any broad wings at 6537.4–6547.9 and 6577.9–6586.4 Å. For the shown spectra the statistical errors are insignificant. -- astro-ph.SR

Astronomy & Telescopes, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Coronal And Chromospheric Activity Of Teegarden’s Star

by Keith CowingApril 4, 2025September 18, 2025

Teegarden’s star is a late-type M-dwarf planet host, typically showing only rather low levels of activity. In this paper we present an extensive characterisation of this activity at photospheric, chromospheric, […]

Scatter plot of the flare energy as a function of spot group area for solar flares (black dots) and superflares of G-type stars from the Kepler sample by Okamoto et al. (2021). Left panel: Original Sun-like sample from Okamoto et al. (2021). Right panel: Updated solar observations based on the rescaling discussed in Hudson et al. (2024) (purple dots) and updated stellar sample utilizing the updated spot group area function by Herbst et al. (2021) (blue dots and according errors). -- astro-ph.SR

Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Habitable Zones, Space Weather & Heliophysics, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

Comparing The Sun To Sun-like Stars. On The Importance Of Addressing Faculae/spot Domination

by Keith CowingApril 4, 2025April 4, 2025

Whether the Sun is an ordinary G-type star is still an open scientific question.

Artist's concept of a stellar flare from Proxima Centauri. Credit: NSF/AUI/NSF NRAO/S. Dagnello

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Press Release, Proxima Centauri, Radiation, Space Weather & Heliophysics, Stellar Cartography

ALMA Shares A New View of Proxima Centauri

by Keith CowingMarch 29, 2025

At a distance of just over four light years, Proxima Centauri is our nearest stellar neighbor and is known to be a very active M dwarf star.

An active region on the sun emitted a mid-level solar flare, peaking at 4:47 a.m. EST on Nov. 5, 2014. This is the second mid-level flare from the same active region, labeled AR 12205, which rotated over the left limb of the sun on Nov. 3. -- NASA

Astronomy & Telescopes, Habitable Zones, Radiation, Space Weather & Heliophysics, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

Analyzing the Morphology of Late-phase Stellar Flares From G-, K-, and M-type Stars

by Keith CowingMarch 24, 2025March 24, 2025

Stellar flares occasionally present a peak-bump light curve morphology, consisting of an initial impulsive phase followed by a gradual late phase. Analyzing this specific morphology can uncover the underlying physics […]

Rotation periods as a function of effective temperatures for all detections (unfilled points), including new detections (blue), planet hosts (yellow), and new planet hosts (orange). The complete sample from Santos et al. (2021) is shown for reference as a density distribution. -- astro-ph.SR

Astronomy & Telescopes, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Space Weather & Heliophysics, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

A Homogeneous Catalog of Oscillating Solar-Type Stars Observed by the Kepler Mission and a New Amplitude Scaling Relation Including Chromospheric Activity

by Keith CowingMarch 21, 2025March 21, 2025

We present a homogeneous catalog of global asteroseismic parameters and derived stellar parameters for 765 Kepler main-sequence and subgiant stars.

space weather

Effects of Transient Stellar Emissions On Planetary Climates Of Tidally-locked Exo-earths

MHD Simulations Preliminarily Predict The Habitability and Radio Emission of TRAPPIST-1e

Temporal Variation of Flare Occurrence Rates via the Spot Evolution on the Sun and Solar-type Stars

The Solar Wind Can Apparently Make Water On The Lunar Surface

Webb Space Telescope Captures Neptune’s Auroras For First Time

Coronal And Chromospheric Activity Of Teegarden’s Star

Comparing The Sun To Sun-like Stars. On The Importance Of Addressing Faculae/spot Domination

ALMA Shares A New View of Proxima Centauri

Analyzing the Morphology of Late-phase Stellar Flares From G-, K-, and M-type Stars

A Homogeneous Catalog of Oscillating Solar-Type Stars Observed by the Kepler Mission and a New Amplitude Scaling Relation Including Chromospheric Activity

NASA Is Forfeiting Its Global Astrobiology Leadership

Curiosity Rover Catches A Stunning Martian Dawn

NASA Spaceline Current Awareness List #1,219 2 October 2026 (Space Life Science Research Results)

Possible News From The Committee on Astrobiology and Planetary Sciences Meeting

Tricorder Tech: An Electrical Technique For Identifying Signs Of Life In Space