The Space Weather Visualiser
The Space Weather Visualiser is Lumina's animated map of what's happening between the Sun and Earth. It's not just eye candy — every element you see on screen is driven by live data and is physically meaningful. Here's a tour of what each part represents.
Solar wind particles
The stream of dots flowing from the left side of the canvas represent the solar wind — charged particles (mostly protons and electrons) constantly streaming from the Sun at hundreds of kilometres per second.
The speed of the particles is tied to the measured solar wind speed from NOAA's satellites. The density (how many particles you see) is tied to the measured proton density. Fast, dense solar wind = lots of fast-moving dots.
Bow shock
The orange arc standing off from the dayside (the side of the Earth facing the Sun) of the magnetosphere is the bow shock — a standing shock wave where the supersonic solar wind abruptly slows down, heats up, and becomes turbulent. It's like a sonic boom permanently parked in front of Earth's magnetic bubble.
The distance of the bow shock from Earth changes with dynamic pressure. When pressure is high, the shock is pushed closer to Earth (the magnetosphere is compressed). When pressure is low, the shock stands further out. You can see this in real time — watch the bow shock move during a pressure spike.
Magnetosheath
The amber crescent between the bow shock and the magnetosphere is the magnetosheath — a region of hot, decelerated, turbulent solar wind plasma that's just passed through the shock. It's the staging area where the solar wind waits before interacting with Earth's magnetic field.
Magnetosphere
The blue bubble surrounding Earth is the magnetosphere — Earth's magnetic shield that deflects most of the solar wind around the planet. Normally it's sealed, but when the IMF points southward, a gate opens on the sunward side.
The size of the magnetosphere on the visualiser responds to dynamic pressure — it shrinks when pressure is high and expands when pressure eases.
IMF field lines
The coloured lines moving with the solar wind represent the Interplanetary Magnetic Field (IMF) — the Sun's magnetic field carried by the solar wind.
- Cyan lines — northward Bz. The field aligns with Earth's field and mostly slides around harmlessly. The gate stays closed.
- Magenta dashed lines — southward Bz. The field opposes Earth's field, allowing magnetic reconnection at the magnetopause. The gate opens.
The tilt of the IMF lines shows the By component — how much the field is leaning sideways. A purely southward field (By ≈ 0) is the most efficient at coupling energy into the magnetosphere. A strong east-west tilt reduces the coupling efficiency even if Bz is negative.
Dayside reconnection — the X marker
When Bz is southward, you'll see a pink X marker appear on the sunward side of the magnetosphere. This marks magnetic reconnection at the magnetopause — the physical process where the IMF and Earth's magnetic field link up and open a pathway for solar wind energy to enter. The size of the X scales with reconnection strength, which depends on how southward Bz is and how fast the solar wind is blowing.
Once the fields reconnect, magnetic field lines are dragged from the dayside around to the nightside by the solar wind flow — this is what loads energy into the magnetotail.
Magnetotail & plasma sheet
The dashed purple line extending through the centre of the magnetotail is the plasma sheet — a region of hot, dense plasma trapped in the middle of the tail. As energy loads into the tail, the plasma sheet thickens and brightens. This is the visual cue that a substorm is building.
Substorm onset — the tail flash
When enough energy has accumulated, the stretched field lines in the tail reconnect at a point about 60% of the way down the tail. On the visualiser, this appears as a bright white-yellow flash with a magenta halo — a substorm . After the flash, energy is released both toward Earth (accelerating particles into the atmosphere to create aurora) and away from Earth down the tail.
The substorm sequence on the visualiser compresses a process that normally takes tens of minutes into about 4 seconds of animation — it's sped up so you can actually see the full loading-release cycle.
Aurora bands on the Earth
Around the Earth in the diagram, you'll see glowing bands representing the auroral oval. The brightness and extent of these bands are driven by the simulated or live hemispheric power. As HP rises, the bands swell equatorward and intensify — visually showing you whether the oval is reaching toward your latitude.
Simulation modes
By default, the visualiser runs in Live Data mode, reflecting real conditions from real-time satellite data. But you can switch to simulation modes (G1 through G5) to see how the system behaves under different geomagnetic storm levels:
- G1 (Minor) — mild southward Bz, moderate solar wind. The aurora oval expands slightly.
- G2 (Moderate) — steady southward Bz, faster wind. Oval reaches southern Tasmania/NZ.
- G3 (Strong) — strong southward Bz, fast wind. Plasma sheet loaded, substorms firing. Oval into Victoria.
- G4 (Severe) — very strong forcing. Magnetosphere visibly compressed, intense reconnection. Widespread aurora.
- G5 (Extreme) — extreme conditions. Maximum compression, saturated reconnection, oval pushed to low latitudes.
When you switch modes, all the animated elements smoothly transition to the new conditions over about 2 seconds, and the stats grid updates to show the key numbers for that storm level.
The stats grid
Below the animation, the stats grid shows the key numbers: solar wind speed, density, Bz, Bt, dynamic pressure, hemispheric power, and the derived space weather score. The colour coding matches the rest of Lumina — green for favourable through to red for extreme. In simulation mode, all these numbers reflect the simulated conditions so you can see exactly what a G3 storm looks like in the data.
Tap the ? icons
The visualiser has small ? icons scattered across the canvas — one for the bow shock, the magnetosphere, the magnetotail, dayside reconnection, and the IMF field lines. Tapping any of them pops up a short explanation of what that feature represents and what it tells you about current conditions. They're there to help you learn the physics while you watch.