Nasa has built an artificial intelligence model to predict where on Earth an impending solar storm would strike, a new system that scientists said can provide “30 minutes of advance warning”. The AI model analyses Nasa satellite data to raise the alarm on dangerous space weather, said researchers from the American space agency’s Goddard Space Center. The warning may provide just enough time for countries to prevent severe impacts of these storms on power grids and other critical infrastructure, according to the new study published recently in the journal Space Weather. Solar storms are caused when the Sun emits a burst of electrically charged plasma in what is called a coronal mass ejection. These charged particles create so-called geomagnetic storms that may cause blackouts and technological malfunctions of instruments on Earth as they interfere with the protective magnetic field around the planet. While these storms range from mild to extreme, their effects could become increasingly disruptive in a technologically dependent world. For instance, a solar storm in 1989 caused blackouts across Quebec, Canada for 12 hours, plunging millions into the dark and closing schools and businesses. Another popular solar superstorm event known as the Carrington Event sparked fires at early telegraph stations in 1859 that prevented messages from being sent. Scientists warned that the risk of such a devastating solar storm is increasing as we approach the next “solar maximum” – a peak in the Sun’s 11-year activity cycle. To prevent such a devastation, Nasa scientists developed the new AI model to identify links between solar wind measurements from previous Sun missions and geomagnetic disturbances observed at ground stations across Earth. The computer model they developed, called DAGGER, can quickly and accurately predict geomagnetic disturbances worldwide, “30 minutes before they occur,” researchers said. When they tested the model against two geomagnetic storms that happened in August 2011 and March 2015, it was able to “quickly and accurately” forecast the storm’s impacts around the world. The new prediction system is the first to combine swift analysis of AI, with real measurements from space and across Earth to generate frequently updated predictions. Scientists believe the early warning provided by the system can help take action to protect infrastructure from an impending solar storm, such as temporarily taking sensitive systems offline or moving satellites to different orbits. Read More Stunning aurora lights up skies over Australia: ‘Brightest one I’ve ever seen’ How a severe solar storm could leave a lasting impact on our world The world is not yet ready to overcome a once-in-a-century solar superstorm, warn scientists Astronomers find ‘objects that no one has ever seen before’ Saturn’s rings are no more than 400 million years old – study Strange sounds recorded by balloons in stratosphere leave scientists puzzled

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By Dawn Chmielewski and Sheila Dang (Reuters) -Former NBCUniversal advertising chief Linda Yaccarino could be named the next Twitter chief

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The biggest explosion ever seen has been spotted in space – and scientists don’t know for sure where it came from. The blast was brighter than almost anything ever seen and has been going on for years, making it by far the most powerful such event witnessed by scientists. It has been ongoing for more than three years, and took place nearly 8 billion years away. Astronomers have proposed a host of possible explanations for the blast: it may be a vast cloud of gas that was torn apart by a black hole, for instance. But nothing on such a scale has ever been seen before and the explosion may have come from something else entirely. It is more than 10 times brighter than any known supernova and three times brighter than the brightest tidal disruption event, where a star falls into a supermassive black hole. The explosion, known as AT2021lwx, took place when the universe was around six billion years old, and is still being detected by a network of telescopes. The astronomers, led by the University of Southampton, believe the explosion is a result of a vast cloud of gas, possibly thousands of times larger than our sun, that has been violently disrupted by a supermassive black hole. Fragments of the cloud would be swallowed up, sending shockwaves through its remnants, as well as into a large dusty “doughnut” surrounding the black hole. Such events are very rare and nothing on this scale has been witnessed before, the researchers say. Last year, astronomers witnessed the brightest explosion on record – a gamma-ray burst known as GRB 221009A. Although this was brighter than AT2021lwx, it lasted for just a fraction of the time, meaning the overall energy released by the AT2021lwx explosion was far greater. AT2021lwx was first detected in 2020 by the Zwicky Transient Facility in California, and subsequently picked up by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) based in Hawaii. But until now the scale of the explosion had been unknown. Dr Philip Wiseman, research fellow at the University of Southampton, who led the research, said: “We came upon this by chance, as it was flagged by our search algorithm when we were searching for a type of supernova. “Most supernovae and tidal disruption events only last for a couple of months before fading away. For something to be bright for two plus years was immediately very unusual.” The Southampton-led team believe the most feasible explanation for what caused the explosion is an extremely large cloud of gas (mostly hydrogen) or dust that has come off course from its orbit around the black hole and been sent flying in. Dr Wiseman added: “With new facilities, like the Vera Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time, coming online in the next few years, we are hoping to discover more events like this and learn more about them. “It could be that these events, although extremely rare, are so energetic that they are key processes to how the centres of galaxies change over time.” The findings are published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Additional reporting by agencies Read More Biggest explosion ever seen spotted in space – and we don’t know what it is Scientists think they have explained a ‘mysterious structure in the universe’ Astronomers spot the largest cosmic explosion ever seen Astronomers spot the largest cosmic explosion ever seen Astronomers see ‘objects that no one has ever seen before’ in incredible observations ‘Meteorite? shooting star? missile?’: Officials explain strange ‘fireball’ over Japan

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