CEDAR email: Astronaut Aurora Project

[Bernard Jackson]

Katie,

Our group at UCSD now operates a Kp prediction at the NASA Goddard CCMC, and also on our UCSD website at: https://ips.ucsd.edu/experimentalforecasts, Look at Kp Analysis. This has the potential of predicting Kp several days in advance from first principles detailed by (Newell, P.T., Sotirelis, T., Meng, C.I., and Rich, F.J., 2007, ‘A nearly universal solar wind-magnetosphere coupling function inferred from 10 magnetospheric state variables’, J. Geophys. Res., 112, A01206, doi: 10.1029/2006JA012015). I attach a copy of my poster presentation at the recent NOAA SWW meeting. The analysis has a history of giving accurate predictions of GSM Bz up to 5 days ahead of time in an earlier article published in 2019 in Space Weather  (Jackson, B.V., Yu, H.S., Hick, P.P., Buffington, A., Tokumaru, M., Fujiki, K., Kim, J., and Yun, J., 2019, ‘A daily determination of Bz using the Russell-McPherron effect to Forecast geomagnetic activity’, Space Weather, 17, 639-652, doi: 10.1029/2018SW002098).

Other than that, if you want to know about weird aurora our group has long been interested in the not so very weird high aurora observed by the Solar Mass Ejection Imager (Mizuno, D.R., Buffington, A., Cooke, M.P., Eyles, C.J., Hick, P.P., Holladay, P.E., Jackson, B.V., Johnston, J.C., Kuchar, T.A., Mozer, J.B., Price, S.D., Radick, R.R., Simnett, G.M., Sinclair, D., Tappin, S.J., Webb, D.F.: 2005, Very high altitude aurora observations with the Solar Mass Ejection Imager. J. Geophys. Res. 110, A07230). An attempt was made to view this from a balloon instrument at a time in 2022 when no aurora was observed (See a 2025 article in Solar Physics I also attach). This did not work, but we were afraid it might and hinder, as it will the NASA SMEX PUNCH instruments just launched to LEO on March 10, even when there is no geomagnetic storm present.  The PUNCH first good white light observations of the heliosphere through whatever aurora is present are not supposed occur until June of this year, unfortunately.

Bernard Jackson


**********

Bernard V. Jackson (home)

Work: 858 534-3358

Cell:    858 442-9532



________________________________
From: scostep-all-request at listserv.bc.edu <scostep-all-request at listserv.bc.edu> on behalf of Katie Herlingshaw <KatieH at UNIS.no>
Sent: Saturday, March 29, 2025 6:53 AM
To: mist at jiscmail.ac.uk <mist at jiscmail.ac.uk>; eiscat-user at lists.eiscat.se <eiscat-user at lists.eiscat.se>; darn-users at isee.nagoya-u.ac.jp <darn-users at isee.nagoya-u.ac.jp>; scostep-all at listserv.bc.edu <scostep-all at listserv.bc.edu>; Newsletter Editor <editor at igpp.ucla.edu>; cedar_email at mailman.ucar.edu <cedar_email at mailman.ucar.edu>; dasp.dpae at gmail.com <dasp.dpae at gmail.com>
Subject: Astronaut Aurora Project


The first human spaceflight in a polar orbit (Fram2) will launch next week - Tue April 1 2025 ~ 3UT! The Fram2 astronauts are in a scientific collaboration called the SolarMaX project with The University Centre in Svalbard and the ARCTICS ISSI group.



The goal of the SolarMaX project is to create an open-source database of aurora photographs for researchers over a 3-5 day orbit window. This collection will include videos captured from Fram2, as well as those taken from the ground by anyone on Earth who can observe the aurora and measurements from scientific instruments.



During the mission, scientists and citizen scientists will monitor conditions for certain types of what we call ‘weird aurora’. The astronauts will then be alerted if any types are spotted along their orbit path, so they can be ready. Photos should be submitted to the Skywarden database for researchers to use and a selection of people who do this will win prizes that have been to space.



If you have instruments that could be useful for the mission, then turn them into high-resolution mode and let us know! If you can spread the word about the mission in your network then that is also great - anyone can take part using a camera or smartphone in any area with the opportunity for aurora!



Read more information on www.solarmaxmission.com<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.solarmaxmission.com__;!!Mih3wA!DzE-x1eimfSe09b8x07KEJR2xR0NYtebvNUrzEZeVIFprVWi0dRgY5i7RhcUYvgVflIpJuUQiVE3roLW$> and contact katieh at unis.no<mailto:katieh at unis.no> with any questions or comments.
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