The Coronal and Solar Magnetism Observatory (CoSMO)

Present and future space weather forecast capability is critically limited by observational inputs to forecast models. Measuring the magnetic and thermodynamic boundary conditions to the inner solar system and exploiting those initial conditions in (next-generation) space weather forecast models is essential to making progress. The Coronal and Solar Magnetism Observatory (CoSMO) is designed to make those critical measurements and establish the boundary conditions for the system. With the observations in hand, the derived data products could rapidly advance understanding of the Sun-Earth system and drive significant increase in space weather forecast capability.

The current paradigm of understanding and, hence, forecasting of space weather hinges critically on our ability to understand the Sun's magnetic field, how it is formed, how it erupts, how it evolves, and the electromagnetic processes that it drives out into the solar system which then couple into our atmosphere through the magnetosphere and ionosphere . CoSMO is designed to measure those magnetic fields. By doing so it will provide critically needed boundary conditions for the accurate forecasting of geo-effective space weather events. The state of the art in this arena is unacceptably poor given what hinges on our success - the fabric of society itself - given concerns about the fallibility of critical food, water, and sewage infrastructure arising from any sustained power outages.

The proposed CoSMO facility would be located below the summit of Mauna Loa on Hawaii's Big Island. The largest single capital investment would go into the observatory comprising the 1.5m diameter CoSMO large coronagraph (“LC”). The CoSMO LC is designed to measure the vector magnetic field and thermodynamic state of the Sun’s corona and the energy reservoir that it contains - critical elements missing in any space weather forecast. An adjacent building will house the CoSMO master control center and a second observing platform called the CoSMO Community Spar. That eight-sided sun-pointing platform that would host instruments built by HAO and the community. From HAO, instruments would include the K-Coronagraph (to measure the white light inner corona); ChroMag (a protoype magnetograph to measure the magnetic field and thermodynamic state at multiple levels throughout the disk atmosphere of the Sun, from its surface to the bottom of the corona); X-Cor (being developed to detect earth-directed energetic coronal mass ejections in the extended corona to complement K-Cor). These instruments provide redundancy for operational coronagraphs in space. It is our strong desire that the remaining faces of the community spar be used at an Agency level to test advanced synoptic-scale (full solar disk) instrumentation and technology developed at universities and other research establishments in the US for future deployments on the ground or in space.

The space weather challenge is one that requires bridges to be built across disciplines. It brings fundamental physics, plasma physics, mathematics, numerical modeling, data science, and computer vision through innovative engineering, material science, and platform distribution to a place where well-informed communication and education of decision makers and the general public is possible.

Further, on a much broader canvas, the underpinnings of space weather, and its long-term analog of space climate, logically permit the investigation of how the understanding the Sun, and its magnetic activity, can help understand the habitability of far flung star systems. In short, space weather presents a convergent research challenge to us and society. CoSMO is an enabler of convergent research.