• NASA has launched Surya Heliophysics Foundational Model, an artificial intelligence (AI) model trained on nine years of observations from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. 

• Developed by NASA in partnership with IBM and others, Surya uses advances in AI to analyse vast amounts of solar data, helping scientists better understand solar eruptions and predict space weather that threatens satellites, power grids, and communication systems. 

• The model can be used to provide early warnings to satellite operators and helps scientists predict how the Sun’s ultraviolet output affects Earth’s upper atmosphere.

• Surya, with its ability to generate visual predictions of solar flares two hours into the future, marks a major step towards the use of AI for operational space weather prediction.

• Preliminary results show Surya is making strides in solar flare forecasting, a long-standing challenge in heliophysics. 

• Surya’s strength lies in its foundation model architecture, which learns directly from raw solar data. 

• Unlike traditional AI systems that require extensive labeling, Surya can adapt quickly to new tasks and applications. 

• While Surya is designed to study the Sun, its architecture and methodology are adaptable across scientific domains. 

• From planetary science to Earth observation, the project lays the foundational infrastructure for similar AI efforts in diverse domains.

• Surya is part of a broader NASA push to develop open-access, AI-powered science tools. Both the model and training datasets are freely available online to researchers, educators, and students worldwide, lowering barriers to participation and sparking new discoveries.

Solar activity affects Earth and space-based technology

• Solar storms pose significant risks to our technology-dependent society. 

• Powerful solar events energise Earth's ionosphere, resulting in substantial GPS errors or complete signal loss to satellite communications. 

• They also pose risks to power grids, as geomagnetically induced currents from coronal mass ejections can overload transformers and trigger widespread outages.

• In commercial aviation, solar flares can disrupt radio communications and navigation systems while exposing high-altitude flights to increased radiation. 

• The stakes are even higher for human spaceflight. Astronauts bound for the Moon or Mars may need to depend on precise predictions to shelter from intense radiation during solar particle events.

• The Sun’s influence extends to the growing number of Low Earth Orbit satellites, including those that deliver global high-speed internet. 

• As solar activity intensifies, it heats Earth’s upper atmosphere, increasing drag that slows satellites, pulls them from orbit, and causes premature re-entry. 

• Satellite operators often struggle to forecast where and when solar flares might affect these satellites.