At ESA’s 2025 Ministerial Conference, the Space Safety Programme received significant support for its mission to predict, detect and mitigate space hazards, and to build towards a sustainable future in orbit. This is what we’re working on 👇
www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed...
Usually, we move a satellite out of the way of space debris. But what if we could prevent collisions by moving the debris instead? Meet OMLET: laser-based collision avoidance from the ground: www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed...
2025 Kees de Jager Prize
For the Best Article in the journal #SolarPhysics of 2024 link.springer.com/journal/1120...
A fascinating space-weather event! 🌞
Great use of SOHO/EIT data (that green movie👇) to show how high-energy particles can impact satellites (as well as aviation).
As SOHO marks 30 years, it’s a great reminder of how transformative this mission has been for heliophysics ☀️💨🛰️💨🌍and space
Here's a release that came out of @swri.org this morning. You'll want to click through and see our awesome movies of the inner solar system! We just presented them at the #AGU2025 meeting this morning. 🧪🛰️🔭☀️
📣 New outreach poster: ESA’s Vigil Mission ☀️💨🛰️💨🌍
The Space-weather “reporter” will monitor the Sun from the Lagrange point 5, reporting 24/7 solar activity days before it reaches Earth.
www.esa.int/var/esa/stor...
Space weather isn’t just about lovely displays of the aurora. There is a very real impact on our technology too.
Proud to have contributed to the new SCOSTEP roadmap for 2026–30!
SCOSTEP = the global body coordinating research on Sun–Earth connections. The new programme, COURSE, lays out the scientific priorities for the next 5 years.
Exciting times ahead for heliophysics!
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Proud to see ESA’s Vigil mission featured in the CRO Forum’s new report on space-related risks.
From L5, Vigil will boost early warning for solar storms — a key step for protecting critical infrastructure on Earth ☀️💨🛰️🌍
📄 thecroforum.org/wp-content/u...
Here's a picture of me *not* driving an imaginary car 🚗 — but explaining how the consistent, calibrated nature of Vigil’s ☀️💨🛰️🌍data products will make them ideal for training and deployment with machine learning and AI forecasting tools. In ESWW2025 TDM13: events.spacepole.be/event/222/se...
Oooh, quite an exciting result ahead of the SMILE mission - it will be able to remotely observe and track solar wind composition.
academic.oup.com/rasti/advanc...
#heliophysics
I like making confuse-o-grams that include *all* the details. Help me make this more confusing - what can I add that I'm missing?
🎉Happy Hamilton Day! Sir William Hamilton gave us Hamiltonian mechanics⚙️
His formulation H=T+V underpins orbital dynamics, spacecraft trajectories, and plasma physics
No Hamiltonian Mechanics→No knowledge of L5 Lagrange point→No perfect spot for a space-weather mission-ESA’s Vigil🌞💨🌍
Fantastic few days at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies with the brilliant Peter Gallagher — great discussions on #AI and ESA’s #Vigil mission. Exciting times ahead: AI forecasting will be helping us very soon! 🌞🤖
Tagging this so the #heliophysics feed picks it up!
In a recent HAO/NCAR Colloquium, Philip G. Judge explained the context and motivation of his recent study on "Changing Methodologies in Solar Physics". #SolarPhysics 300, 84 (2025). doi.org/10.1007/s112... #OpenAccess youtu.be/YwFgM7XEtJs
Another day, another solar and heliophysics first — @ORB_KSB and @esa.int have created a unique eclipse in space! 🌍☀️🌘
The first formation-flying coronagraph: two spacecraft flying 150 m apart, perfectly aligned to block the Sun and reveal its hot corona.
Find out more:
www.esa.int/Enabling_Sup...
Solar astronomer @stephyardley.bsky.social joins BBC Science in Action this week to explain why the new polar views of the Sun, from ESA's Solar Orbiter, will make such a difference in unravelling the Sun's magnetic turmoil and what drives the 11-yr cycle in activity.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w...
that said.... due to the optically thin nature of the observations at 17.4 nm, these are probably the most unobscured observations of the poles through this passband
😆 I stand corrected
Pleased as PUNCH -pardon the pun(CH) to see these amazing images - led by the great @drzowie.bsky.social - the first full sky heliospheric images from PUNCH capturing a couple of eruptions - The next generation of space weather heliospheric instrumentation will be polarized like PUNCH - #trendsetter
Just to reiterate. This is the FIRST 🥇view of the solar poles. This is astonishing and shows what we, humans, can achieve
Oh awesome thanks for the contact!
Looks great, I would love to discuss how this might be adopted for #Vigil with you!
This is a new tool to look at @science.esa.int #SolarOrbiter imaging data (or data from other missions) and the field of views of different instruments.
hpa.esa.int/hpa/#/home
Looking at X-ray Flux Monitors today—instruments that detect solar X-ray bursts. They're used in #SpaceWeather☀️☔ studies, helping understand solar☀️flares that can disrupt comms📡, satellites & aviation✈️. Attached an X-ray light curve from 2014 showing confined flares- with no associated eruptions
The National Solar Observatory's 4-meter Inouye Solar Telescope, funded by NSF, just discovered something new on the Sun: magnetic striations only a few tens of kilometers across, which affect the Texas-sized granules that carry solar energy to the surface (to become sunlight)! ☀️🧪🔭⚛️
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/check_engine.png
The Sun 🌞 — our source of space weather ☔ — needs constant watching. Who knows what it’ll throw at us next? @ESA #Vigil ☀️👁️🗨️🌍.
imgs.xkcd.com/comics/check...
Image of the solar corona, taken by the SECCHI inner Heliospheric Imager (HI-1) on the STEREO Ahead observatory on June 22, 2011 at 19:29:01 UT.
Wrapping up another fascinating @ESA #Vigil👁️🗨 instrument day — at Leonardo S.p.A. Florence Italy — focused on the Vigil Heliospheric Imager. HI will be instrumental (pun intended) in tracking Coronal Mass Ejections💨 & space weather☔ from Sun🌞 to Earth🌍. Heres a representative STEREO HI image Jun 2011
Great connection here! Indeed there is an aurora producing storm happening www.swpc.noaa.gov, though will likely have passed by this evening US time.
