Heliophysics Big Year (HBY)
Note: This page is under development. Feedback is always welcome.
Introduction
The Heliophysics Big Year (October 2023 to December 2024) is a global celebration of solar science and the Sun's influence on Earth and the entire solar system during the year leading to a solar maximum. Solar science events during the HBY include a Total Solar Eclipse in April 2024, the Solar Maximum of Solar Cycle 25 between January and October 2024, and the Parker Solar Probe perihelion (a close approach to the sun) in December 2024.
The goal of the HBY is to come together and look for synergistic opportunities that present pathways to scientific advancement with immense potential. HBY enables us to address ambitious research questions using complementary skills and resources by joining efforts through open science across programs, science communities, individual researchers, and citizen scientists, each enriching the others, while actively focusing on inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility in ways that:
- Generate excitement.
- Enable new discoveries.
- Give us quick wins on the time scale of the HBY.
- Create legacy associations that will live on beyond HBY.
- Enable innovative and comprehensive analysis of solar storms.
CCMC support of HBY
In support of the HBY, the CCMC
- is organizing the 'World Modeling Challenge': Storms in Coupled Geospace System.
- is adapting the CCMC integrated Space Weather Analysis System (iSWA) and other CCMC tools/systems for open system-science studies of major storms.
World Modeling Challenge
The CCMC is initiating geospace runs with simulation settings tailored for storm studies as soon as high-quality solar wind inputs become available. The CCMC is also collecting simulation outputs produced by the community within the agreed time period after the storm onset. The focus of the pilot study is major storms that occurred in March, April, and November of 2023 that are associated with red aurora at subauroral latitudes, and other unusual phenomena, with great potential for giving insights into superstorm dynamics. More storms will be added as we are moving towards the Solar Max. Generated iSWA layouts for selected storm time periods will include science quality observational data and simulation outputs in addition to real-time data/output.
Storm Time Periods
- 2023-03-TP-01: 2023-03-21T00:00:00Z to 2023-03-28T00:00:00Z
- 2023-04-TP-01: 2023-04-22T00:00:00Z to 2023-04-27T00:00:00Z
- 2023-11-TP-01: 2023-11-04T00:00:00Z to 2023-11-08T00:00:00Z
April 2024 Solar Eclipse
List of resources and information tailor for the Apr 2024 Total Solar Eclipse:
- Coronal Prediction for the Apr 8, 2024 Total Solar Eclipse from Predictive Science.
- Helioviewer Eclipse Watch, an extension of Helioviewer supported by NASA's SDAC.
- iSWA layout with Coronagraph from SOHO and STEREO in near real-time (click 'info' on the individual cygnet to learn more about it).
Parker Solar Probe's Perihelion
TBD