Researchers have made a potentially crucial breakthrough in solar science that could help predict dangerous solar flares with greater precision, thanks to a discovery made possible by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).
For many decades, scientists have faced challenges due to the unpredictability of solar flares. These sudden eruptions of high-energy radiation can sometimes interfere with space-based communications systems and potentially impact critical infrastructure on Earth.
Now, research funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research has successfully identified an erratic flickering phenomenon that manifests within coronal loops, arching structures that appear in the Sun’s extreme atmosphere, just hours before a flare occurs.
The new discovery could offer a viable early warning system for predicting when potentially disruptive solar flare events will likely occur.
Erratic Flickering and Solar Flares
Coronal loops are well-known in solar physics and comprise distinctive arch-like structures composed of dense plasmas formed and confined by magnetic flux tubes. Sometimes forming over periods lasting as much as several days, these massive structures can extend for impressive distances, sometimes exceeding 62,000 miles in length.
Brightness fluctuations observed within these coronal loop structures could significantly improve our ability to monitor and forecast space weather events, according to heliophysicist Emily Mason from San Diego-based Predictive Sciences Inc., who led the recent research behind the discovery.
In addition to protecting Earth-based assets, a better ability to predict space weather events could offer significant protection for astronauts working in orbit and space-based instruments like satellites, which can also be harmed by hazardous solar activity.
Mason’s team analyzed data from close to 50 powerful solar flares, finding that coronal loops emerging over flaring regions produced erratic flickering in extreme ultraviolet light before eruptions much more than researchers observe in non-flaring regions.
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory provided crucial data that allowed the team to track brightness variations occurring within the coronal loops across different wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light. During their observations, Mason and the team learned that in the few hours leading up to a solar flare event, the flickering activity showed a significant increase, implying a potential link between the fluctuation rate and the ensuing flare intensity.
“We found that some of the extreme ultraviolet light above active regions flickers erratically for a few hours before a solar flare,” Mason said in a statement. “The results are really important for understanding flares and may improve our ability to predict dangerous space weather.”
Better Prediction of Strong Solar Flares
Until now, scientists have primarily relied on analyzing the Sun’s magnetic fields to help them predict the timing and magnitude of solar flares. Other methods also include monitoring broader patterns in coronal activity. However, Mason and her colleagues say that researchers may now be able to monitor chaotic fluctuations in coronal loop brightness to better forecast strong solar flares.
Based on the new discovery, Mason’s team believes scientists may now be capable of predicting flares with 60 to 80 percent accuracy. This would allow solar scientists to provide warnings as much as six hours before a solar event occurs.
“A lot of the predictive schemes that have been developed are still predicting the likelihood of flares in a given time period and not necessarily exact timing,” according to Seth Garland of the Air Force Institute of Technology, who also participated in the new research.
Kara Kniezewski, lead author of a new paper detailing the team’s work, emphasized that looking for periods of chaotic behavior in coronal loop emissions provides a more consistent predictive metric.
“The Sun’s corona is a dynamic environment, and each solar flare is like a snowflake — every single flare is unique,” Kniezewski said.
Kniezewski, a graduate student at the Air Force Institute of Technology, said the team found that by focusing their search on the periods where particularly chaotic behavior occurred helped the research team develop “a much more consistent metric and may also correlate with how strong a flare will be.”
The team’s data also suggests that stronger flares may peak earlier in the flickering cycle, although further observations will likely be needed before a correlation can be confirmed.
From Research to Real-World Applications
Based on their findings, the team hopes future research can build on these observations to develop automated systems that can monitor coronal loops in real time for brightness fluctuations. This would offer a promising means of early warning before solar flares occur.
Ideally, such a system would be incorporated into existing space weather monitoring capabilities, allowing safeguards for astronauts, spacecraft, and critical infrastructure that can be damaged by intense solar activity here on Earth.
“Previous work by other researchers reports some interesting prediction metrics,” said study co-author Vadim Uritsky, a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “We could build on this and come up with a well-tested and, ideally, simpler indicator ready for the leap from research to operations.”
Refining such methods in the years ahead, scientists may finally reach a point where more accurate predictions about space weather events can enable safer and more comprehensive studies in orbit.
The team’s findings were published in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. He can be reached by email at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow his work at micahhanks.com and on X: @MicahHanks.