This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The sun is the reason life exists on our small, blue planet. It provides solar radiation that warms the planet and ignites intricate biochemical processes like photosynthesis, producing oxygen for life to breathe.
However, while the sun is known for giving life, it can also take it away with solar flares, geomagnetic storms and solar radiation storms, collectively referred to as space weather. But how can space weather be forecast so industries can better prepare and protect their assets, including infrastructure on Earth, satellites and even human safety? Now, a team of researchers from Imperial College London might be one step closer to answering this conundrum as they introduced the HENON (Heliospheric pioneer for solar and interplanetary threats defence) CubeSat to improve space weather forecasting.
HENON was introduced during the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting, which took place July 20–24, 2026, along with its key instrument, MAGIC (MAGnetometer from Imperial College). The primary motivation behind HENON is to improve space weather forecasts, especially by increasing advance warning time, which is currently only 15–60 minutes before a space weather event strikes Earth. Another goal of HENON is to improve assessments of the severity of incoming space weather events, which requires measuring the solar magnetic field.
The limited warning time is because current space weather satellites are positioned at the sun–Earth L1 Lagrange point, about 1.5 million kilometers (932,000 miles) from Earth. This is where HENON's concept stands out, as the CubeSat is planned to orbit 15 million kilometers (9.32 million miles) from Earth, or 10 times farther than current spacecraft. As a result, the researchers estimate this could improve advance warning time from 15 minutes to up to 3 hours.
"The success of HENON will be a step change in our ability to forecast space weather and paves the way for a future operational space weather mission, SHIELD, that is being developed by the European Space Agency (ESA)," said Dr. Jonathan Eastwood, a professor of space physics in the Department of Physics (Blackett Laboratory) at Imperial College London and lead author of the study. The Carrington Event is arguably the most intense space weather event of the technological era.
It occurred Sept. 1–2, 1859, resulting in global auroras and disruptions to telegraph systems. However, several less powerful space weather events have occurred since then, including the "Jennifer Gannon" superstorm from May 7–11, 2024, which was designated a G5 (extreme) storm, and an S4 (severe) solar radiation storm on Jan. 19, 2026. For context, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has a rating system called the Space Weather Scales, comprising G, S and R scales indicating geomagnetic storms, solar radiation storms and radio blackouts, respectively.
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