Most of our solar observations are taken from the ecliptic plane. To understand the solar wind and radiation at higher heliographic latitudes, we can analyze changes in the brightness of the heliospheric glow. The glow’s brightness depends not only on the illumination structure but also on the distribution of hydrogen in the heliosphere. Additionally, these observations are subject to disturbances caused by sudden active brightenings on the Sun’s surface.

The primary goal of this project is to develop a method for detecting the connection between active regions on the Sun’s surface and brightenings in the observed heliospheric glow. This will allow us to incorporate this phenomenon into our current glow models, contributing to a more accurate determination of the solar wind structure.

Within the project, available observations of the solar disk from various instruments (SDO/AIA, SO/EUI, STEREO/SECCHI, ASO-S/LST) as well as hydrogen glow observations (SOHO/SWAN, IMAP/GLOWS) will be analyzed. We will identify brightenings in the glow and their corresponding sources on the Sun. A technique will be developed to predict the brightness and location of glow brightenings based on the properties of the active region on the Sun’s surface. The resulting relationship can be used to eliminate the effect of brightenings from glow observations, to include brightenings in models, or to analyze active regions on the Sun based on glow observations. This last application seems particularly interesting as it allows for the detection of an active region on the unseen side of the Sun.

A doctoral student will be hired for the project. Their task will be to apply the developed solutions to clean up the light curves obtained by the Polish GLOWS instrument on board the IMAP mission (planned launch is mid-2025).