Scientists Used AI to Predict the Solar Storms – And It Actually Worked

4th Feb 2025
Scientists Used AI to Predict the Solar Storms – And It Actually Worked

While AI is causing a lot of mixed emotions in pretty much every industry, it is definitely fair to say that there are some potential upsides, and now, AI technology could help us to solve the issue of the previously unpredictable nature of the sun.

In fact, new machine learning technology could have even predicted the solar activities that were prevalent in 2024. 

A Breakthrough in Forecasting Solar Storms

The Sun’s magnetic field and electrically-charged gases make it volatile. The mass ejections and solar storms can potentially cause a huge level of disruption around the world. 

Now, an algorithm trained on decades of solar activity seems to have spotted the signs, and could maybe predict future plasma bursts. These CMEs (Coronal Mass Ejections) are linked to solar flares and happen when magnetic lines realign and energy is released from the sun. These can make it to the earth and cause geomagnetic storms. With the potential to impact GPS, mobile networks, and electricity, these can be immensely disruption and knowing they are on the way could be a useful tool to limit the fallout.

A team led by Sabrina Guastavino from the University of Genoa has applied artificial intelligence to try and forecast the activities and predict the events, and found that if the technology had been used prior to the solar storms of May 2024, they could have been predicted. 

The team fed huge levels of data into a machine learning platform, and ran the process against the May storms with accurate results. In fact, their paper boasted “unprecedented accuracy in the forecast with significant reduction in uncertainties with respect to traditional methods.”

The AI was also able to predict travel times to earth and the onset of storms with a high degree of accuracy.

With the potential for much more accurate forecasting in the future, astronomers will be watching with interest and potentially spotting more solar storms.

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