Work

Extreme Space Weather Events of the Past 30 Years: Preparation for Data From Mission Vigil

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Extreme Space Weather events can negatively affect ground‐based infrastructure and satellite communications. European Space Agency plans to launch a new operational mission, Vigil, to monitor space weather activity and provide timely warnings about immediate danger. In this work, we have identified 24 instruments that have already acquired data on 8 space missions and are similar to instruments planned for mission Vigil. We then selected the 39 most extreme space weather events that affected the Earth in the past 30 years and gathered Vigil‐like data for them. The objective of this work and our main motivation was to address the following question: “How would Vigil have observed extreme space weather events if it had been operational during those events?” For this reason, we prepared a pipeline for the community to obtain images and in‐situ measurements for these specific periods, allowing straightforward applications for the follow‐up data‐driven studies. This effort could maximize Vigil's potential. Additionally, we studied the sources of extreme space weather events and the time it took for solar plasma to reach Earth's magnetosphere. This analysis demonstrates the utilization of the gathered data set and provides interesting insights into the most hazardous space events that influenced society in recent decades.

Source: Earth and Space Science

DOI: 10.1029/2024ea003937

Authors: Adam Majirský, Šimon Mackovjak, Silvia Kostárová, Samuel Amrich

Institutions: Technical University of Košice, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Institute of Experimental Physics of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Charles University

Language: English

Topic: Ionosphere and magnetosphere dynamics

Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics

Field: Physics and Astronomy

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,650

Funder: European Space Agency