How social media turned into a global network for space weather tracking

Space · Published 25 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: In 2011, a NASA scientist watched a geomagnetic storm unfold from her computer. While she saw no lights in her own sky, she watched a digital aurora bloom across social media. This viral moment sparked a project that now turns every smartphone into a scientific sensor.

The project, Aurorasaurus, was founded by space weather scientist Liz MacDonald after she observed a massive influx of real-time tweets from across the eastern United States during a geomagnetic storm on October 24, 2011. This event marked one of the first instances of wide-scale aurora documentation via social media. Today, the project operates as a concerted citizen science effort, using a dedicated website, mobile apps, and Twitter to collect reports and photographs from volunteers worldwide. The initiative involves a collaboration between Dr. MacDonald and citizen scientist Donna Lach. It allows volunteers to submit their own photographs and reports. This system actively searches for specific keywords on Twitter to find relevant posts.

The core challenge for NASA scientists is that large geomagnetic storms occur infrequently, leaving researchers with a shortage of data to build accurate predictive models. While satellites monitor the sun and near-Earth space environment, they cannot always predict exactly where or how strongly an aurora will manifest on the ground. Aurorasaurus fills this gap by providing a high volume of data points from 'citizen scientists' who can report sightings in real-time. Predicting the precise timing and strength of these displays remains difficult for researchers. The project aims to provide more data points to address this scientific hurdle.

The utility of this data is already proven. A study published in the journal Space Weather on March 3, 2016, revealed that citizen scientists regularly spot auroras significantly farther south than current prediction models suggest. By integrating these human observations, scientists can improve short-term forecasts for enthusiasts and better understand the risks of geomagnetic storms, which can cause significant infrastructure issues like power outages and satellite interruptions. These reports help scientists understand the behavior of geomagnetic storms. The project has already documented some of the largest recent aurora displays.

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