Supporting Space Weather Forecasting with Wide Field EUV Imaging

Tracking of solar eruptions for NOAA’s space weather forecasting activities will primarily leverage the GOES-R Solar Ultraviolet Imagers (SUVI) and Compact Coronagraphs (CCor) on the Space Weather Follow-On (SWFO) mission to the L1 Lagrange point and on the GOES-U satellite in geostationary orbit. However, SUVI’s FOV ends around 1.7 Rs, while CCor’s begins above 3.7 Rs (GOES-U) or 3.0 Rs (SWFO). Thus the NOAA instrument suite leaves a key observational gap, in which eruptions that originate near the solar surface are well-known to evolve, and CME shock acceleration of particles occurs. Wide field EUV imaging (to 3Rs) will allow forecasters to directly connect observations of CMEs in coronagraphic FOVs to their sources just above the solar surface, and to fully characterize their evolution of CME kinematics during a critical phase where events experience complex accelerations, which will help to refine modes of CME arrival time and impact at Earth. Additionally, the ability of a wide-field EUV imager to detect the onset of CME-associated shocks provides powerful diagnostic capability for the drivers of solar energetic particle events.