NASA & IBM launch AI model ‘Surya’ for solar storm prediction

NASA and IBM have unveiled an unprecedented AI model ‘Surya’ to revolutionize solar storm prediction. It takes images of the Sun in multiple wavelengths every 12 seconds, providing unparalleled detail.

• NASA has introduced “Surya,” a groundbreaking artificial intelligence model aimed at revolutionizing the way we understand and predict space weather.
• Developed in collaboration with IBM and trained on over nine years of continuous data from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), Surya analyzes vast streams of solar activity to detect early signs of solar flares and eruptions.

AI model ‘Surya’

• Early results show that Surya can generate visual forecasts up to two hours in advance with greater accuracy than traditional methods. By making the model open-source, NASA aims to enable global researchers to utilize its capabilities and improve space weather defense worldwide.
• Unlike traditional forecasting methods that rely on limited models, Surya leverages machine learning to process massive datasets and detect subtle patterns in solar activity.

‘Surya’ receives data from the Solar Dynamics Observatory

• Surya’s strength lies in the training data obtained from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), a spacecraft launched in 2010 to study the Sun.
• The SDO takes images of the Sun in multiple wavelengths every 12 seconds, providing unmatched detail. The observatory continuously records measurements of the Sun’s magnetic activity.

Solar storms

• When the Sun erupts, it releases bursts of charged particles and magnetic energy, called solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CME).
• These events generate “space weather,” which can spread across the solar system and disrupt satellites, power grids, GPS systems, and even the safety of astronauts on space missions.

Other missions

About Parker Solar Probe:

• Launched in 2018, the car-sized robotic spacecraft is named after American solar astrophysicist Eugene Newman Parker.
• It is NASA’s first mission named after a living researcher and humanity’s first mission to explore within 3.8 million miles of the Sun’s corona.

Aditya-L1

• ISRO launched its first solar mission, Aditya-L1, on PSLV-C57 rocket in September 2023. Aditya-L1 is India’s first space-based solar observatory mission to study the Sun from a distance of 1.5 million kilometers.
• It took about 125 days to reach the L1 point. After AstroSat (2015), Aditya-L1 is ISRO’s second observatory-class astronomy mission.

ESA (Europe) solar missions

• Solar Orbiter: launched in 2020, a joint mission with NASA, provides unprecedented views of the Sun’s poles, which are difficult to observe from Earth’s orbital plane.
• SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory): a joint ESA/NASA mission that has been providing continuous data since 1995, studying the Sun’s interior and outer corona.

CNSA (China) solar mission

• ASO-S (Advanced Space-based Solar Observatory): launched in 2022, it focuses on observing solar flares and coronal mass ejections to understand the mechanisms behind them.