Space Weather: Automated Early Warning of Filament Eruption

This project will fund a Ph.D. student at Big Bear Solar Observatory to establish an automated early warning system of filament eruption. A computer program, developed to automatically recognize the structure of filaments, will broadcast their disappearance to researchers via electronic mail. Broadcast information will include the time of eruption and the coordinates and size of the filament. The student will establish a filament index based on the list of filament eruptions recorded by the automated program. This index will account for frequency of filament eruption, size of filament, and disk location, and will be compared with indices of geomagnetic activity.