What is heliophysics?
Heliophysics is the integrated study of the Sun, its planets, and space environment as a dynamic system. It focuses on the Sun's turbulent magnetic activity and its effects on the upper atmosphere of Earth, as well as on other solar system planets and the surrounding heliosphere.
It encompasses many areas of inquiry: cosmic rays and particle acceleration, space weather and radiation, dust and magnetic reconnection, solar activity and stellar cycles, aeronomy and space plasmas, magnetic fields and global change, and the interactions of the solar system with our galaxy.
How does Heliophysics benefit us?
Heliophysics has great value for two reasons. It is critical in understanding space weather and its potentially crippling impacts on our vital technologies: our satellites, communications and navigation signals, and power grids. This understanding guides our mitigation strategies.
Heliophysics also teaches us about habitability. In studying the Sun’s changing effects on planetary atmospheres, we can learn by proxy about another star’s effects on the atmospheres of its exoplanets. This knowledge will support our search for life elsewhere in the universe.
Announcements
Heliophysics Summer School 2025
UCAR Cooperative Programs for the Advancement of Earth System Science (CPAESS) partners with NASA to hold the Heliophysics Summer School each year. The 2025 NASA Heliophysics Summer School will be held in person, August 11 - 20, 2025, in Boulder, Colorado.
Explore the Sun-Earth connection
For grad students & early postdocs
Focus on the physics and impacts of Sun-generated
space weather events
For early-career PhDs
Perform cross-disciplinary research under
experienced scientist mentors at U.S. institutions
For faculty & students
Access presentations, problem sets and solutions,
textbooks, and more from past Summer Schools
For researchers & engineers
Collaborate to outline new space weather research
that will critically improve an existing technology area
Partners in nurturing a new science
NASA's Living With a Star Program (LWS) and UCAR Community Programs' Cooperative Programs for the Advancement of Earth System Science (CPAESS) partnered in 2006 to launch the Heliophysics Summer School. Since then they have worked to foster heliophysis as an integrated science, teaching a new generation of researchers to engage in cross-disciplinary communication.