NASA has been working on a joint project with the US Geological Survey and the Department of Energy at the Frontier Development Lab to better understand and predict space weather. This is an important job for NASA because understanding and predicting space weather is crucial to ensuring the safety of Earth's technological systems.
One of the biggest threats to Earth's technological systems is a solar storm, which can overwhelm our magnetosphere and cause disruptions in electronics. These disruptions can cause serious problems for everything from telecommunications to power grids.
View of NASA’s SOHO satellite being overwhelmed during a 2003 solar storm.
Image Credits: NASA
To better prepare for these events, the NASA team has been working on a deep learning model called DAGGER, or Deep leArninG Geomagnetic pErtuRbation. DAGGER uses data from multiple satellites monitoring the sun as well as ground stations watching for geomagnetic disruptions to identify patterns in how solar flares lead to disruptions.
Using data from geomagnetic storms that hit Earth in 2011 and 2015 as test data, the team found that DAGGER was able to quickly and accurately forecast their effects across the globe. This combines the strengths of previous approaches while avoiding their disadvantages.
Previous prediction models have used AI to produce local geomagnetic forecasts for specific locations on Earth. Other models that didn't use AI have provided global predictions that weren't very timely. DAGGER is the first one to combine the swift analysis of AI with real measurements from space and across Earth to generate frequently updated predictions that are both prompt and precise for sites worldwide.
While it may be some time before you get a solar alert on your phone telling you to pull over or your car might stop working, DAGGER could make a big difference when we know there's vulnerable infrastructure that could suddenly shut down. With a few minutes' warning, we can take steps to mitigate the effects of a solar storm and protect our technological systems.
The DAGGER model is open source, and you can read the paper describing it in the journal Space Weather. With NASA's continued work on space weather prediction, we may soon have the ability to get advance warning of the next big solar storm.
