Press contact: Thomas Berger, 303-735-8557,thomas.berger@colorado.edu

EGU Press Conference

Life in space: habitability in our solar system and beyond

April 30, 2024

Our planet protects us from cosmic rays, solar flares, micrometeorites and huge temperature variations. But what if the planetary shield is not strong enough, or what if we venture out into space itself?! In this press conference, scientists discuss the observation of biosignatures on distant exoplanets and where is the...

Sun

The race to fix space-weather forecasting before next big solar storm hits

April 4, 2024

Solar activity can knock satellites off track, raising the risk of collisions. Scientists are hoping improved atmospheric models will help. “It’s not unlikely that we will get a large geomagnetic storm in the next four or five years,” says Berger. “And that will really test the whole thing.” The SWx...

Power grid

Forecasters can now predict space weather-induced disruptions to the power grid an hour in advance

Jan. 23, 2024

At the AGU's 2023 Fall meeting in San Francisco, Andong Hu, a space weather researcher with SWx TREC, presented his work on a machine learning forecast approach, developed at CU Boulder, that gives power transmission operators more lead time. He said, "It's like an early-warning system for the power system...

Solar storm

The Next Big Solar Storm Could Fry the Grid

Oct. 11, 2023

The first primitive ancestor of future AI-based solar-weather alert systems is live. [SWx TREC's] DstLive system, which debuted on the web in December 2022, uses machine learning to take data about the state of Earth’s magnetic field and the solar wind and translate both into a single measure for the entire planet, known as DST.

Space Weather Prediction

New $10 million center at CU Boulder to begin space weather research

Oct. 9, 2023

A new center at the University of Colorado Boulder will begin researching space weather between the Earth and the moon to find ways to make the region safer for satellites. Right now, Principal Investigator Tom Berger said, scientists have no forecasting ability for that region of space.

Space weather graphic

New center will lay groundwork for better space weather forecasts

Sept. 25, 2023

NASA announced that it had selected four Space Weather Centers of Excellence , including the Space Weather Operational Readiness Development (SWORD) center at CU Boulder. As its name suggests, the nearly $10 million center will offer some powerful protection for the planet: SWORD research will seek to help scientists develop...

Knipp to give AFRL/AFOSR Chief Scientist Distinguished Lecture

Sept. 1, 2023

Delores Knipp will give the AFRL/AFOSR Chief Scientist Distinguished Lecture on Space Weather at 13 EDT / 11 MDT on 11 September. Registration is required: https://www.zoomgov.com/webinar/register/WN_UrSzsoCQQricAm_OB7Vj5g Talk Titled: Space Weather: Balancing an Unbalanced Threat Description: Space weather, like terrestrial weather, poses a multi-faceted challenge to DoD operations. However, space weather,...

SWORD logo square

NASA Selects Space Weather Centers for Excellence

Aug. 16, 2023

The Space Weather Technology, Research & Education Center is leading a NASA Space Weather Center of Excellence, an integrated multi-agency initiative to advance the science and technology of space weather. NASA has selected three Space Weather Centers of Excellence (SWxC) and is partnering with the Department of Commerce (DoC) on...

A polar tongue of ionization during a geomagnetic storm stretching from lower latitudes up over Canada, Greenland, and northern Europe and Asia.*

CU Boulder researcher earns NASA grant to study how space weather affects Earth

Aug. 1, 2023

Yang Wang is leading a unique study harnessing satellite data to study how solar activity affects a poorly understood region of Earth’s upper atmosphere. Wang, a visiting faculty member in the Ann and H. J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences working in the Space Weather Technology, Research, and Education...

Luis Navarro

CU Boulder scientist advancing space weather research with major NASA grant

July 24, 2023

Luis Navarro is pushing the forefront of research in Earth’s extreme upper atmosphere to answer important and complex scientific questions. Navarro, a research scientist in the Space Weather Technology, Research and Education Center (SWx TREC) at the University of Colorado Boulder, has earned a four-year, $700,000 NASA Heliophysics grant to...

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