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...

ESA Space Safety Fleet

ESA Space Safety Fleet

esa.int

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...

Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research@mpsgoettingen.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Congratulations! For re-examining and improving a 33-year-old reconstruction of #solarirradiance, #MPSGoettingen scientist Theodosios Chatzistergos received the #KeesdeJagerPrize for best publication in the journal #SolarPhysics. The award was now presented. www.mps.mpg.de/kees-de-jage...

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

ESA Operations@operations.esa.int · 8mo ago

🛫 ☀️ When the Sun disrupts aviation Did you know that #SpaceWeather can affect flights in surprising ways? One phenomenon gaining attention is the impact of energetic charged particles - originating from our Sun and even distant stars - on aircraft electronics. www.esa.int/Space_Safety...

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.

Euclid UK@eucliduk.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Remember that lovely aurora last week? Well...um...this is what Euclid saw... 😱 🧵

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

SMILE SXI can be used to track solar wind composition

Abstract. Continuous monitoring of solar wind ion composition is essential for understanding solar-terrestrial interactions, particularly the Solar Wind Ch

academic.oup.com

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!

Mathew Owens@mathewjowens.bsky.social · last yr.

There's more magnetic field in the solar wind than models based on the observed solar surface suggest. This is the so-called "open flux problem". Here's an interesting new solution: helicity condensation - highly twisted magnetic field at the small scale relaxes and affects the large scale field.

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

Changing methodologies in solar physics 2025 05 21

YouTube video by High Altitude Observatory HAO | NCAR

youtu.be

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...

BBC World Service - Science In Action, The First Solar Polar Pictures

ESA’s Solar Orbiter camera probe begins raising its orbit towards the sun’s poles.

bbc.co.uk

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

Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️@craig.deforest.org · last yr.

Hey! Lookie what PUNCH (@punch-mission.bsky.social) just saw! Two different solar storms crossing the entire inner solar system! NASA's site doesn't thumbnail well, so click the link for the movie and other images. ☀️🔭🛰️🧪 science.nasa.gov/blogs/punch/...

Just to reiterate. This is the FIRST 🥇view of the solar poles. This is astonishing and shows what we, humans, can achieve

ESA Space Science@science.esa.int · last yr.

Ready to see the Sun like we never have before? 😎 #SolarOrbiter has just released the first views ever of the Sun’s poles! Thanks to its newly tilted orbit, the mission will uncover details about the Sun’s magnetic field, the solar cycle & space weather 👉 www.esa.int/Science_Expl... 🔭 🧪 ☄️ ☀️ 1/

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)! ☀️🧪🔭⚛️

Magnetic Curtains on the Sun: NSF Inouye Solar Telescope Reveals Ultra-Fine Striations in Solar Surface - NSO - National Solar Observatory

In a groundbreaking new study, a team led by scientists from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) National Solar Observatory (NSO) has captured the sharpest-ever view of the Sun’s surface, revea...

nso.edu

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...

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.

AngryHoss@angryhoss.bsky.social · last yr.

#LGTBQ #pride @glaad.bsky.social @lgtbqia.bsky.social @prideanimes.bsky.social @rubicon1313.bsky.social

Such lovely detail! Zoom in and discover the varied features of the Sun’s atmosphere.

Royal Observatory of Belgium@orb-ksb.bsky.social · last yr.

☀️🛰️New mosaic image of Solar Orbiter! 🤩 In March 2025, @orb-ksb.bsky.social combined 200 high-res images of the Sun into a stunning mosaic. Each of those images is taken by our EUI telescope onboard Solar Orbiter when it was 77 million km from the Sun. 🔭🧪 www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed... @science.esa.int

🛰️ 🛰️ ☀️ #Proba3 is now officially the world’s first precision formation flying mission! The mission team has achieved the desired precision – with the two spacecraft maintaining their relative position down to less than a millimetre while flying 150 metres apart! www.esa.int/Enabling_Sup...

Amazing clarity from the NSF-funded Goode Solar Telescope at Big Bear Solar Observatory! ☀️🔭🧪

“Raindrops in the Sun’s Corona”: New Adaptive Optics Shows Stunning Details of our Star’s Atmosphere - NSO - National Solar Observatory

Scientists from the U.S. NSF National Solar Observatory and New Jersey Institute of Technology produced the finest images in the Sun’s corona to date. Using a new 'coronal adaptive optics' system that...

nso.edu

Just wrapped up a fascinating day at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen, discussing the Photospheric Magnetic Imager for the @esa #Vigil mission — including a tour of the facilities where both it will be and the Solar Orbiter PHI instrument were developed.