Dr. Yeimy Rivera

What are solar storms and the solar wind? 3 astrophysicists explain how particles coming from the Sun interact with Earth Space weather isn’t referring to rain clouds that float through the galaxy. Instead, it’s caused by massive explosions of particles that shoot out from the Sun.

Solar storms can cause power blackouts, interrupt communication, and even make satellites fall to Earth prematurely. Scientists study space weather to predict it:

buff.ly/npSaKFa

What are solar storms and the solar wind? 3 astrophysicists explain how particles coming from the Sun interact with Earth Space weather isn’t referring to rain clouds that float through the galaxy. Instead, it’s caused by massive explosions of particles that shoot out from the Sun.

We had a blast answering questions about the solar wind and solar storms as part of @us.theconversation.com's Curious Kids series 🛰️ 🌞 theconversation.com/what-are-sol...

Our new paper is published! 🥳Observational Constraints on the Radial Evolution of O6+ Temperature and Differential Flow in the Inner Heliosphere using @science.esa.int Solar Orbiter mission
doi.org/10.3847/2041...

SwRI-led work confirms decades-old theoretical models about solar reconnection | Southwest Research Institute Research helps fill crucial observation gaps about process that drives solar flares, coronal mass ejections

Newly published @natastron.nature.com paper led by Dr. Ritesh Patel, a research scientist at SWRI, 'confirms decades-old theoretical models about solar reconnection'. Read the press release here: www.swri.org/newsroom/pre... 🥳

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Snaps Closest-Ever Images to Sun

Newly released images - taken closer to the Sun than we’ve ever been before - are helping scientists better understand the Sun’s influence across the solar system, including events that can affect Earth. 🧪🔭

science.nasa.gov/science-rese...

Visiting MSSL today, had a fantastic time chatting with everyone!

With the excitement of recent observations from NASA's
@punch-mission.bsky.social, a collated image showing the synergy it could have with a proposed NASA SMEX mission, EUV CME and Coronal Connectivity Observatory (ECCCO), in the inner most corona!! #Teamwork Credit: Kathy Reeves & PUNCH team

#middlecorona

Amazing!! Go PUNCH!

This is just the beginning! ☀️

Please consider submitting to our session at ESWW 🌞 🛰️🚀
🗣️ Call for abstracts for ESWW 2025: CD8 - The Vigil Mission: Advancing Space Weather Operations & Science.
📆 Deadline for oral presentations is 15 May 2025 (5 Sep for posters).
👉 esww.aeronomie.be
Go Vigil! 🛰️

This is NOT good. Still wrapping my head around what the fallout of this will be. But definitely NOT GOOD. Check in with your NSF Fed friends, y'all. They might be getting bad news right now.

www.science.org/content/arti...

#savescience #savensf #WeekOfAction #advocacy #NSF #NSFfunded

Shifting perspective on the Sun provided by @esa.int Solar Orbiter on its inclined orbit. Low-latency images from the EUI telescope from around perihelion last month to now. 😍

NASA just released the first-light images from the PUNCH mission! The WFI images are spectacular. More images will be forthcoming on the PUNCH website soon. 🔭🛰️☀️

My PhD student Aisling O'Hare has published her first paper studying the impact of QPPs in solar flare emission on Earth's atmosphere. The ionosphere is much more sensitive to small changes in EUV irradiance than previously believed as measured by changes in total electron content. 👏

We have published an update to our #solarstorm catalog today, now with 1901 in situ observed events. Solar ☀️ activity in 2024 was really strong, adding another 192 events measured at @esa.int Solar Orbiter, NASA Parker Solar Probe and other missions, with 50 events at 🌍. helioforecast.space/icmecat

Solar Opposites A scientist and a cosmic cabbie land on common ground.

stanfordmag.org//contents/so...

PUNCH mission logo

We just launched a mission account for PUNCH: @punch-mission.bsky.social. That account will be a good source for mission updates and science "nuggets" as they happen. Click through and follow it if you like. 🧪🛰️☀️🔭

punch.space.swri.edu

ESA @esa.int Solar Orbiter is diving towards the Sun and should be crossing the heliospheric current sheet very soon; which is anchored by a nested active region! Later this month we will try to make observations of fast solar wind sources, with coronal hole 3 looking like a promising candidate!

NASA may have to cancel major space missions due to budget cuts Potential cuts of up to 50 per cent of NASA's science budget could mean cancelling missions including the Hubble Space Telescope and the Voyager probes

NASA is facing enormous cuts, half of its science budget, under DOGE.

The impacts on the agency could be devastating, possibly including the cancellation of entire missions such as Hubble, Perseverance, and Voyager.

Story by me in New Scientist (free to read)

www.newscientist.com/article/2472...

An exciting opportunity here to build a new data assimilation scheme for the unique (but underused) heliospheric imager data. This could be huge for space-weather forecasting.

The Planetary Society Strongly Opposes Mass Layoffs of Probationary… Sudden, indiscriminate layoffs at NASA do not serve the national interests in space leadership.

The Planetary Society strongly opposes the sudden, indiscriminate dismissal of more than 1,000 scientists, engineers, and explorers at NASA — the largest involuntary workforce reduction since the end of the Apollo program.

Read more on our stance. ⬇️

Solar orbiter: a short review of the mission and early science results - Astrophysics and Space Science On 9 February 2020 at 11:03 pm EST, an Atlas V 411 rocket launched the ESA/ NASA Solar Orbiter mission. This mission was the culmination of decades of work across many countries to achieve the goal of...

New #ReviewArticle by Cecelia Payne-Gaposchkin Medal and Prize winner Louise Harra & Daniel Müller. Solar Orbiter: a short review of the mission and early science results. #AstrophysSpaceSci 370, 12 (2025). doi.org/10.1007/s105...

#2024AstroPrizeCollection #OpenAccess @louise-solar.bsky.social

New paper day! Savita Mathur and collaborators expand the sample of Kepler stars with measured photometric variability index (S_ph) and investigate the dependence on stellar Rossby number (the ratio of convection and rotation timescales). Paper here:https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.10109 (1/4)

☀️ Happy to share a new paper discussing coverage of different state variables and the magnetic field from the Sun to the heliosphere: arxiv.org/abs/2502.06036. Here are figures for density diagnostics. It is really striking how close #ParkerSolarProbe gets to the Sun.

Collage of women who contributed to the ESA & NASA Solar Orbiter mission

💫🎉 Behind every successful ESA space mission, there's a woman. Behind the ESA & NASA Solar Orbiter mission, there are more than a hundred of them!

Join us in celebrating them today, on international day of women and girls in science!
#WomenInScience #WomenInSTEM
🔭🧪

www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed...

Including many former and current scientists and engineers from #MPSGoettingen!
Thanks for your contributions to the mission! ☀️🔭
#SolarOrbiter #WomenInScience #WomenInSTEM

Welcome to the #heliophysics feed! Solar, solar-wind, heliospheric, geospace, and space weather topics.

To register to post here with "☀️", reply and express your interest in heliophysics or a subfield.

Liking the feed itself will help others to find it.

YouTube video by NASA Goddard NASA’S PUNCH Mission

3 minutes on the PUNCH mission (to image the Sun's corona and solar wind), courtesy of NASA's excellent comms team! We launch in just under three weeks, if all goes well. ☀️🛰️🧪⚛️

The Magnetic Field Structure of Coronal Mass Ejections: A More Realistic Representation - Space Science Reviews It is often accepted that the magnetic field structure of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) is accurately represented by the highly twisted circular cross-section magnetic flux rope model, which is the ba...

#OpenAccess #ReviewArticle
Nada Al-Haddad & Noé Lugaz. The Magnetic Field Structure of Coronal Mass Ejections: A More Realistic Representation. #SpaceSciRev 221, 12 (2025). doi.org/10.1007/s112... @unhresearch.bsky.social