HELIOS/ HLX-1

LIVE FEED — SOL LAGRANGE L1 HALO ORBIT 1 491 568 KM UPRANGE

HELIOS

A research station that never blinks. Continuous observation of the photosphere, corona and solar wind — rendered here as it happens, one and a half million kilometres upstream of Earth.

Active region 4193 is magnetically tangled and still hot from the 04:12 X-class event.

Flare index
M2.4
Solar wind
412 km/s
Sunspot №
137
Station time
—— ——:——:—— UTC
§01

Current conditions

REFRESH 2.0 S

Six instruments, one summary. The station is running in hot watch: the numbers below drift with every exposure, and the X-ray channel can kick the whole feed into flare-bright mode without warning.

Flare index

M2.4

GOES-equivalent 1–8 Å band. Background remains elevated after the 04:12 X1.2 event; another impulse would reach Earth in 8 minutes 11 seconds.

Solar wind

412km/s

Proton bulk speed at L1. High-speed stream from CH-88 expected in roughly 3 days.

Sunspot number

137

International number, HELIOS reduction. AR 4193 & 4196 currently Earth-facing.

IMF Bz

−3.2nT

North–south field component. Sustained south (−) opens the magnetosphere door.

Proton flux

0.41pfu

≥10 MeV integral flux. Storm threshold sits at 10 pfu — quiet, for now.

Kp index

4of 9

Planetary geomagnetic activity, 3-hour cadence. Kp ≥ 5 counts as storm; auroral boundary projected near 58° geomagnetic latitude if Bz holds south.

HOT WATCH AR 4193 — NEXT DSN UPLINK 16:40 UTC — 2 619 DAYS OF CONTINUOUS FEED

§02

Anatomy of a flare

DIAGRAM HLX-D4

A flare is a magnetic accident. Twisted field lines above an active region store energy for days, then release it in minutes — around 10²⁵ joules for an X-class event, most of it in the first ninety seconds.

01 — FOOTPOINT RIBBONS 02 — CORONAL LOOP ARCADE 03 — RECONNECTION POINT 04 — PLASMOID EJECTION PHOTOSPHERE — T ≈ 5 772 K
  1. 01

    Stressed footpoints

    Convection churns the photosphere like a pot at rolling boil, dragging the anchored ends of magnetic field lines. Over days the field above active region 4193 winds into a sheared, energy-loaded arcade.

  2. 02

    The arcade tightens

    Loops of million-kelvin plasma trace the twisted field. Our EUV imager watches them brighten and cross — the signature we grade from C to M to X on the pre-flare watch list.

  3. 03

    Reconnection

    Oppositely-directed field lines are forced together until they snap and re-join. In minutes the field dumps days of stored energy, heating the sheet above the arcade past 10 million K and firing particle beams down the loop legs.

  4. 04

    Ejection

    A magnetised knot of plasma — the plasmoid — pinches off and escapes. If it grows into a full coronal mass ejection aimed our way, the observation log below is where you will read about it first.

§03

Observation log

LAST 7 DAYS

Every notable event, signed by the duty observer. The full archive holds 41 812 entries; the extract below is what the night crew keeps pinned during hot watch.

  1. X1.2

    Impulsive X-class flare, AR 4193

    Two-ribbon flare at W34 S12. R3 radio blackout across the Pacific sector for 40 minutes. Post-flare loops still bright in the 171 Å channel six hours on.

    — Dr. Imara Okonjo, duty observer

  2. CME

    Full-halo coronal mass ejection

    WLC-3 caught a symmetric halo at 1 240 km/s plane-of-sky. Earth-directed component under analysis; arrival window opens 10 Jul 06:00 UTC. G1 watch issued.

    — K. Vasquez, coronagraph lead

  3. CH-88

    Coronal hole crossing central meridian

    Recurrent southern hole CH-88 rotating into geoeffective position. Expect the high-speed stream (~650 km/s) to reach L1 in three days; minor storming likely.

    — Dr. Sana Iyer, heliospheric section

  4. M4.6

    Moreton wave observed

    Impulsive M4.6 from AR 4196 launched a chromospheric shock visible for 19 minutes in the Hα proxy channel — the first clean Moreton wave of cycle 26 from this station.

    — Dr. Elias Brandt, flare patrol

  5. COMET

    Sungrazer SOHO-5211 dissolved

    Kreutz-group fragment entered the C3 field at 03:40, brightened to mag −1.5, and fully sublimated at 1.9 R☉. Final frame archived to the public gallery.

    — M. Ferreira, citizen-science desk

  6. OPS

    WLC-3 door cycle & calibration

    Quarterly occulter-door exercise completed in 96 s. Dark and flat-field frames nominal; stray-light budget unchanged at 3.1×10⁻¹⁰ B☉.

    — Station operations

§04

Instrument array

5 UNITS

Five instruments share the optical bench, thermally isolated and pointed to within 0.1 arcsecond. Together they produce 2.1 TB of sun per day.