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Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, March 21st, titled : Significantly improve the space weather forecast and warning capabilities! Meridian Project Phase II passed the national acceptance
Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhang Quan
With the addition of 195 new monitoring devices, the observation capability covers the entire solar-terrestrial space, which will significantly enhance my country's space weather forecasting and early warning capabilities!
On March 21, the second phase of the Meridian Project, a major national scientific and technological infrastructure, passed the national acceptance. This huge "monitoring network" will help my country's ground-based space environment monitoring capabilities reach the world's leading level.
What is space weather? Why study it?
According to reports, changes in the Sun-Earth space environment on a short time scale caused by solar activities such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections are called space weather. Disastrous space weather can have adverse effects on satellites, communications, navigation, and power systems.
"The solar-terrestrial space is the main area of ??current aerospace activities and space development and utilization, and is considered to be the 'fourth environment' for human activities in addition to the land, sea and air environments." Li Hui, deputy director of the National Space Science Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that mastering the characteristics of the solar-terrestrial space environment and revealing the process and laws of space weather changes are not only the frontier of scientific research, but also have important economic and social value.
What kind of space environment ground-based “monitoring network” has been constructed by the Meridian Project Phase II?
According to reports, the Meridian Project aims to conduct all-round monitoring of the Sun-Earth space environment through widely distributed various types of observation equipment, explore the laws of space weather changes and carry out forecasts and early warnings.
The first phase of the Meridian Project deployed 15 observation stations near 120 degrees east longitude and 30 degrees north latitude, built 87 sets of different types of monitoring equipment, and was officially put into operation in 2012. The second phase of the Meridian Project added 16 stations and 195 sets of monitoring equipment on the basis of the first phase.
"At present, Phase I and Phase II have achieved integrated operation, forming a 'well'-shaped layout along 100 degrees east longitude and 120 degrees east longitude, and near 40 degrees north latitude and 30 degrees north latitude, realizing coordinated networked monitoring of the solar-terrestrial space in my country and the Earth's North and South Poles." said Xu Jiyao, chief engineer of the Meridian Project Phase II and researcher at the National Space Science Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
How is the performance of the Meridian Project Phase II?
"The Meridian Project Phase II has the ground-based monitoring capability to track the entire chain from solar surface explosions and interplanetary propagation to Earth-space responses." Xu Jiyao said that the National Space Science Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences took the lead and worked together with 15 domestic units to build a number of large-scale monitoring equipment, and its technical indicators have reached the international advanced level.
For example, the circular array solar radio imaging telescope deployed in Daocheng, Sichuan, has achieved continuous and stable solar radio imaging with a maximum field of view of 10 solar radii; the array-type large-aperture lidar deployed in Danzhou, Hainan, has a signal sensitivity 100 to 200 times that of similar international equipment.
During the trial operation, the Meridian Project Phase II successfully captured the super magnetic storm event in May 2024, fully recorded the entire process of the response of the Sun-Earth space environment to solar activity, and demonstrated the rapid, high-precision and global monitoring capabilities of space weather events.
"The Meridian Project Phase II will provide key independent data support for my country's space weather forecast and warning." Li Hui said, at the same time, we will also carry out cooperative research with scientists around the world to contribute China's strength to better understand the "fourth environment", develop and utilize space resources, and jointly respond to space weather disasters.
