Matthew J West

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...

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

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!

YouTube video by High Altitude Observatory HAO | NCAR Changing methodologies in solar physics 2025 05 21

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...

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.

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

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...

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.

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

🛰️ 🛰️ ☀️ #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...