Just last month, a powerful solar storm lit up skies across the northern hemisphere, producing vivid auroras visible as far south as parts of the northern United States.
But the breathtaking light show wasn’t the only impact. The severe geomagnetic storm, triggered by a coronal mass ejection from the sun, sent waves of charged particles racing toward Earth, disrupting satellites, scrambling GPS signals and straining sections of the power grid. The event was a stark reminder that space weather is not just about spectacle, but a growing national security risk.
At the University of Florida, space physicist Alicia Petersen, Ph.D., is working on solutions that could help shield the nation from the next big solar storm.
“As our society becomes increasingly dependent on space-based technologies — from agriculture and aviation to defense and disaster response — understanding space weather isn’t optional. It’s essential,” said Petersen, an associate professor in UF’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and a core member of the UF Astraeus Space Institute. Petersen’s group is called the Space Weather Impacts, Forecasting and Transit, or SWIFT, Lab.
Her lab leads efforts to forecast and model solar energetic particles and their impact on spacecraft and space-based infrastructure, such as communication systems. The work is small piece of a growing federal push, involving NASA, NOAA, and the U.S. Space Force, to respond to changes in the space environment and build more accurate prediction systems. The importance of this push is underscored by the surging intensity of the current solar cycle.