Surya is an open-source foundational AI model developed in partnership with heliophysics scientists at NASA that visually models the sun and predicts its future behavior. The model can improve understanding and forecasting of solar flares and whether they will produce coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that cause geomagnetic storms and auroras. The sun is at or near solar maximum, increasing sunspots and flare risk. Geomagnetic storms can disrupt communications, overload power transformers, interrupt GPS, threaten astronauts, and damage satellites, with potential large economic impacts. Surya aims to pinpoint where and when auroras and adverse space weather will occur.
"Surya is like an AI telescope for the sun that can also look into the future," explained Juan Bernabe Moreno, director of IBM research in Europe, the U.K., and Ireland. Not only can Surya model what the sun looks like now, but it can also predict our star's future behavior. This is key for understanding solar flares, and whether they will produce coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and subsequent geomagnetic storms, which cause northern lights.
The increased aurora borealis (northern lights) activity over the past year has been the result of these geomagnetic storms. But these blasts of energetic particles, solar material, and magnetic fields can have negative effects as well. They disrupt communication, overload power transformers, interrupt GPS, present a threat to astronauts, and can even cause newly launched satellites to fall out of the sky.
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