EUV imaging and spectroscopy for improved space weather forecasting

Abstract

Accurate predictions of harmful space weather effects are mandatory for the protection of astronauts and other assets in space, whether in Earth or lunar orbit, in transit between solar system objects, or on the surface of other planetary bodies. Because the corona is multithermal (i.e., structured not only in space but also in temperature), wavelength-separated data provide crucial information that is not available to imaging methods that integrate over temperature. The extreme ultraviolet (EUV) wavelengths enable us to focus directly on high temperature coronal plasma associated with solar flares, coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and shocked material without being overwhelmed by intensity from the solar disk. Both wide-field imaging and spectroscopic observations of the solar corona taken from a variety of orbits (e.g., Earth, L1, or L5) using suitably-chosen EUV instrumentation offer the possibility of addressing two major goals to enhance our space weather prediction capability, namely: (1) Improve our understanding of the coronal conditions that control the opening and closing of the corona to the heliosphere and consequent solar wind streams, and (2) Improve our understanding of the physical processes that control the early evolution of CMEs and the formation of shocks, from the solar surface out into the extended corona.