MIST

Magnetosphere, Ionosphere and Solar-Terrestrial

Latest news

Announcement of New MIST Councillors.

We are very pleased to announce the following members of the community have been elected unopposed to MIST Council:

  • Rosie Johnson (Aberystwyth University), MIST Councillor
  • Matthew Brown (University of Birmingham), MIST Councillor
  • Chiara Lazzeri (MSSL, UCL), Student Representative

Rosie, Matthew, and Chiara will begin their terms in July. This will coincide with Jasmine Kaur Sandhu, Beatriz Sanchez-Cano, and Sophie Maguire outgoing as Councillors.

The current composition of Council can be found on our website, and this will be amended in July to reflect this announcement (https://www.mist.ac.uk/community/mist-council).

Nominations are open for MIST Council

We are very pleased to open nominations for MIST Council. There are three positions available (detailed below), and elected candidates would join Georgios Nicolaou, Andy Smith, Maria-Theresia Walach, and Emma Woodfield on Council. The nomination deadline is Friday 31 May.

Council positions open for nomination

2 x MIST Councillor - a three year term (2024 - 2027). Everyone is eligible.

MIST Student Representative - a one year term (2024 - 2025). Only PhD students are eligible. See below for further details.

About being on MIST Council

If you would like to find out more about being on Council and what it can involve, please feel free to email any of us (email contacts below) with any of your informal enquiries! You can also find out more about MIST activities at mist.ac.uk. Two of our outgoing councillors, Beatriz and Sophie, have summarised their experiences being on MIST Council below.

Beatriz Sanchez-Cano (MIST Councillor):

"Being part of the MIST council for the last 3 years has been a great experience personally and professionally, in which I had the opportunity to know better our community and gain a larger perspective of the matters that are important for the MIST science progress in the UK. During this time, I’ve participated in a number of activities and discussions, such as organising the monthly MIST seminars, Autumn MIST meetings, writing A&G articles, and more importantly, being there to support and advise our colleagues in cases of need together with the wonderful council members. MIST is a vibrant and growing community, and the council is a faithful reflection of it."

Sophie Maguire (MIST Student Representative):

"Being the student representative for MIST council has been an amazing experience. I have been part of organizing conferences, chairing sessions, and writing grant applications based on the feedback MIST has received. From a wider perspective, MIST has helped to grow and support my professional networks which in turn, directly benefits my PhD work as well. I would encourage any PhD student to apply for the role of MIST Student Representative and I would be happy to answer any questions or queries you have about the role."

How to nominate

If you would like to stand for election or you are nominating someone else (with their agreement!) please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by Friday 31 May. If there is a surplus of nominations for a role, then an online vote will be carried out with the community. Please include the following details in the nomination:

  1. Name
  2. Position (Councillor/Student Rep.)
  3. Nomination Statement (150 words max including a bit about the nominee and focusing on your reasons for nominating. This will be circulated to the community in the event of a vote.)

MIST Council details

  • Sophie Maguire, University of Birmingham, Earth's ionosphere - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 
  • Georgios Nicolaou, MSSL, solar wind plasma - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 
  • Beatriz Sanchez-Cano, University of Leicester, Mars plasma - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
  • Jasmine Kaur Sandhu, University of Leicester, Earth’s inner magnetosphere - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
  • Andy Smith, Northumbria University, Space Weather - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 
  • Maria-Theresia Walach, Lancaster University, Earth’s ionosphere - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 
  • Emma Woodfield, British Antarctic Survey, radiation belts - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 
  • MIST Council email - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

Winners of Rishbeth Prizes 2023

We are pleased to announce that following Spring MIST 2023 the Rishbeth Prizes this year are awarded to Sophie Maguire (University of Birmingham) and Rachel Black (University of Exeter).

Sophie wins the prize for the best MIST student talk which was entitled “Large-scale plasma structures and scintillation in the high-latitude ionosphere”. Rachel wins the best MIST poster prize, for a poster entitled “Investigating different methods of chorus wave identification within the radiation belts”. Congratulations to both Sophie and Rachel!

As prize winners, Sophie and Rachel will be invited to write articles for Astronomy & Geophysics, which we look forward to reading.

MIST Council extends their thanks to the University of Birmingham for hosting the Spring MIST meeting 2023, and to the Royal Astronomical Society for their generous and continued support of the Rishbeth Prizes.

Nominations for MIST Council

We are pleased to open nominations for MIST Council. There are two positions available (detailed below), and elected candidates would join Beatriz Sanchez-Cano, Jasmine Kaur Sandhu, Andy Smith, Maria-Theresia Walach, and Emma Woodfield on Council. The nomination deadline is Friday 26 May.

Council positions open for nomination

  • MIST Councillor - a three year term (2023 - 2026). Everyone is eligible.
  • MIST Student Representative - a one year term (2023 - 2024). Only PhD students are eligible. See below for further details.

About being on MIST Council


If you would like to find out more about being on Council and what it can involve, please feel free to email any of us (email contacts below) with any of your informal enquiries! You can also find out more about MIST activities at mist.ac.uk.

Rosie Hodnett (current MIST Student Representative) has summarised their experience on MIST Council below:
"I have really enjoyed being the PhD representative on the MIST council and would like to encourage other PhD students to nominate themselves for the position. Some of the activities that I have been involved in include leading the organisation of Autumn MIST, leading the online seminar series and I have had the opportunity to chair sessions at conferences. These are examples of what you could expect to take part in whilst being on MIST council, but the council will welcome any other ideas you have. If anyone has any questions, please email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..”

How to nominate

If you would like to stand for election or you are nominating someone else (with their agreement!) please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by Friday 26 May. If there is a surplus of nominations for a role, then an online vote will be carried out with the community. Please include the following details in the nomination:
  • Name
  • Position (Councillor/Student Rep.)
  • Nomination Statement (150 words max including a bit about the nominee and your reasons for nominating. This will be circulated to the community in the event of a vote.)
 
MIST Council contact details

Rosie Hodnett - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Mathew Owens - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Beatriz Sanchez-Cano - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Jasmine Kaur Sandhu - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Andy Smith - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Maria-Theresia Walach - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Emma Woodfield - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
MIST Council email - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

RAS Awards

The Royal Astronomical Society announced their award recipients last week, and MIST Council would like to congratulate all that received an award. In particular, we would like to highlight the following members of the MIST Community, whose work has been recognised:
  • Professor Nick Achilleos (University College London) - Chapman Medal
  • Dr Oliver Allanson (University of Birmingham) - Fowler Award
  • Dr Ravindra Desai (University of Warwick) - Winton Award & RAS Higher Education Award
  • Professor Marina Galand (Imperial College London) - James Dungey Lecture

Nuggets of MIST science, summarising recent papers from the UK MIST community in a bitesize format.

If you would like to submit a nugget, please fill in the following form: https://forms.gle/Pn3mL73kHLn4VEZ66 and we will arrange a slot for you in the schedule. Nuggets should be 100–300 words long and include a figure/animation. Please get in touch!
If you have any issues with the form, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 

Quantifying the number of false positive substorms identified in the SuperMAG SML index arising from enhancements in magnetospheric convection

By Christian Lao (MSSL, University College London)

Substorms can be identified from negative bays in the SML index, which traces the minimum northward ground magnetic deflection at auroral latitudes, produced by enhancements of the westward electrojet. For substorms, negative bays are caused by the closure of the Substorm Current Wedge through the ionosphere, typically localized to the nightside and centred around 23-00 magnetic local time (MLT). In this case, the equivalent current pattern that causes the magnetic deflections is given the name Disturbance Polar (DP) 1. However, negative bays may also form when the westward electrojet is enhanced by increased convection, driving Pedersen and Hall currents in the auroral zone. Convection enhancements also strengthen the eastward electrojet, monitored by SMU index. In this case, the equivalent current pattern that produces the magnetic deflections is called DP2.

In this study, we investigated the contributions of the magnetic perturbations from the DP1 and DP2 current patterns to substorm-like magnetic bays identified in SML using the SOPHIE technique of Forsyth et al. (2015), https://doi.org/10.1002/2015ja021343. SOPHIE attempts to distinguish between the DP1 and DP2 enhancements, whereas other SML-based substorm identification methods don’t (e.g. Newell & Gjerloev, 2011; Ohtani+, 2020; etc). However, despite this, we find evidence that between 1997 and 2019 up to 59% of the 30,329 events originally identified by SOPHIE as substorms come from enhancements of DP2, which are unrelated to substorm phenomena, on top of the 2,627 convection enhancement events already identified. We highlight that any “substorm” list is, in fact, a list of magnetic enhancements, auroral enhancements, etc., which may or may not correspond to substorm activity and should be treated that way.

 

See publication for details:
Lao, C. J.Forsyth, C.Freeman, M. P., & Gjerloev, J. W. (2025). Separating DP1 and DP2 current pattern contributions to substorm-like intensifications in SMLJournal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics130, e2024JA033592. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JA033592

 

Estimating Electron Temperature and Density Using Van Allen Probe Data: Typical Behavior of Energetic Electrons in the Inner Magnetosphere

By Dovile Rasinskaite (Northumbria University)

The Earth’s inner magnetosphere contains multiple electron populations influenced by different factors. The cold electrons of the plasmasphere, warm plasma that contributes to the ring current, and the relativistic plasma of the radiation belts often seem to behave independently. Using omni-directional flux and energy measurements from the HOPE and MagEIS instruments aboard the Van Allen Probes, we provide a detailed density and temperature description of the inner magnetosphere, offering a comprehensive statistical analysis of the entire Van Allen Probe era. While number density and temperature data at geosynchronous orbit are available, this study focuses on the warm plasma in the inner magnetosphere (2<L*<6). Values of density and temperature are extracted by fitting energy and phase space density to obtain the distribution function. The fitted distributions are related to the zeroth and second moments to estimate the number density and temperature. Analysis has indicated that a two Maxwellian fit is sufficient over a wide range of L* and that there are two independent plasma populations. The more energetic population has a median number density of approximately 1.2 * 104 m-3 and a temperature of around 130 keV, with a temperature peak observed between L* = 4 and L* = 4.5. This population is relatively uniform in MLT. In contrast, the less energetic warm electron population has a median number density of about 2.5*104 m-3 and a temperature of 7.4 keV. Strong statistical trends in density and temperature across both L* and MLT are presented, along with potential sources driving these variations.

See publication for details:
Rasinskaite, D.Watt, C. E. J.Forsyth, C.Smith, A. W.Lao, C. J.Chakraborty, S., et al. (2025). Estimating electron temperature and density using Van Allen probe data: Typical behavior of energetic electrons in the inner magnetosphereJournal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics130, e2024JA033443. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JA033443

 

Dynamics of TEC High Density Regions Seen in JPL GIMs: Variations With Latitude, Season and Geomagnetic Activity

By Martin Cafolla (University of Warwick)

The ionosphere is a portion of the upper atmosphere of the Earth consisting of free electrons and ions as a result of exposure to solar radiation. The variability of intensity of this radiation, as well as the differing levels of geomagnetic activity, results in fluctuations in electron number density across the ionosphere, characterised by the Total Electron Content (TEC). We define High Density Regions (HDRs) of TEC, that is regions of enhanced line-integrated electron number density, as the top 1% of TEC measurements from Global Ionospheric Maps (GIMs). We then construct an algorithm that isolates, detects and tracks these regions for 20 years of TEC data in sun-centered geomagnetic coordinates. This produces a contiguous set of uniquely labelled space-time TEC HDRs. We conduct a statistical study to determine reproducible trends in HDR formation location, trajectories and durations for different levels of geomagnetic activity at continental and sub-continental (small) scales.

We find that HDR formation is primarily driven by the sub-solar point, spanning the afternoon ionosphere, and in general occurs around four magnetic latitude clusters. Small HDRs typically move along lines of constant magnetic latitude in the direction of Earth rotation, while continental scale HDRs have much more complex paths. The statistical nature of our results provides a probabilistic prediction on future HDR behaviour, offering an ensemble constraint on enhancements seen in ionospheric models.

Example TEC map for 2009-07-23 at 16:30:00 UTC. Panel (a) plots the geographic TEC map. Each 1 degree by 1 degree grid point plots the Vertical TEC at that longitude/latitude. Black triangles show the locations of ground stations. Panel (b) plots the geomagnetic TEC map with grey contours at the top 1% value of TEC in the map, defining the High Density Regions (HDRs). Panel (c) isolates these HDRs and plots them in black, with green contours drawn around each black region to demonstrate the algorithm’s contour detection. Panel (d) plots the isolated HDRs in SM coordinates with bounding rectangles in blue and centroids marked in black, obtained by the detection/tracking algorithm.

See publication for details:
Cafolla, M. A., Chapman, S. C., Watkins, N. W., Meng, X., & Verkhoglyadova, O. P. (2025). Dynamics of TEC high density regions seen in JPL GIMs: Variations with latitude, season and geomagnetic activity. Space Weather, 23, e2024SW004307. DOI: 10.1029/2024SW004307

Discovery of H3+ and infrared aurora at Neptune with JWST

By Henrik Melin (Northumbria University)

The molecular ion H3+ is a significant component of the ionospheres of the giant planets. By observing the near-infrared emission from this ion we can remotely diagnose the physical conditions of this region. This layer of the atmosphere is an importance conduit for energy transfer between the space environment, magnetic field, and the atmosphere below, and it is in this region that magnetospheric auroral currents deposit energetic electrons that form enhanced temperatures and densities of H3+.

H3+ was discovered at Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus over 30 years ago and a great number of studies have been able to characterise the processes that occur in the ionospheres of these planets. However, despite many attempts using telescopes on the ground, H3+ has never been observed from Neptune, in spite of models predicting it should be detectable, based on data from the 1989 Voyager 2 encounter.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the most powerful telescope ever put into space, designed to observe the first galaxies formed in the early Universe. We can leverage this extraordinary sensitivity to explore our own cosmic backyard, by pointing the telescope at the giant planets. The first JWST observations of Neptune were taken in June 2023, and we were able to detect H3+ for the first time (yay!), as well as localised H3+ emissions about the magnetic pole. In other words, we were able to detect the ionosphere and aurora of Neptune for the first time, exactly 100 years after it was discovered at the Earth (Appleton & Barnett, 1925).

See publication for details:
Melin et al., (2025), Nat. Astro., doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-025-02507-9

Can XMM-Newton Be Used to Track Compositional Changes in the Solar Wind?

By Simona Nitti (University of Leicester)

Continuous monitoring of the solar wind ion composition is vital for understanding solar-terrestrial interactions, particularly through the study of Solar Wind Charge Exchange (SWCX) emission. SWCX produces soft X-rays (<2 keV) when highly charged solar wind ions (e.g., O7+, O8+, C6+) interact with neutral atoms. This emission is ubiquitous across the solar system, occurring wherever the solar wind encounters interstellar neutrals or interacts with planetary environments, including those of Earth, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, and Pluto.

In this study (https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JA033323), we investigated whether SWCX emission from Earth’s exosphere, observed by the XMM-Newton telescope, can be used to infer solar wind composition. By comparing spectral line intensities extracted from XMM data with ion abundance measurements from the ACE spacecraft at L1, we found that OVIII emission closely tracks O8+ abundances. In contrast, other ions involved in the SWCX process—such as O7+, C6+, C5+, and Mg11+—do not exhibit a consistent correlation between their abundance and X-ray emission.

To explore whether XMM data still encodes information about the solar wind state, we employed a Random Forest Classifier to predict solar wind types, following the classification scheme by Koutroumpa (2024). Incorporating XMM features alongside proton parameters significantly improved model performance, with a macro-averaged F1 score of 0.80 ± 0.06, compared to 0.55 when using proton data alone. Notably, XMM emission features ranked among the top five most important inputs. Moreover, XMM emission features ranked among the top five most important predictors. This suggests that, while individual ion abundances cannot currently be inferred directly from emission fluxes, XMM still provides valuable insight into the solar wind type, from which an average compositional profile may be inferred. This work is particularly timely given the degradation of the heavy ion spectrometer onboard the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE), which has left the scientific community without reliable near-Earth ion composition measurements since 2011.

(a) SWCX periods ACE O8+/p (where p is proton density) 2D histograms, averaged over their occurrence between 2000 and 2009, in a (O7+/O6+)×(C6+/C5+) space, with black lines separating different solar wind types.
(b). Occurrence rate of ACE O8+/p for the Streamer (black), Outlier (red) wind and ICMEs (green).
(c) (d) Same as left plots but for OVIII ion line fluxes from the XMM SWCX data set.

See publication for details:

Nitti, S.Carter, J. A.Sembay, S. F.Milan, S. E.Zhao, L.Lepri, S. T., & Kuntz, K. D. (2024). Can XMM-Newton be used to track compositional changes in the solar wind? Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics129, e2024JA033323. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JA033323