3D Visualisation of Solar Data with JHelioviewer

Abstract:

The Solar Orbiter and Parker Solar Probe missions focus on exploring the linkage between the Sun and the heliosphere. These new missions are collecting unique data that will allow us to study the coupling between macroscopic physical processes to those on kinetic scales, the generation of solar energetic particles and their propagation into the heliosphere and the origin and acceleration of solar wind plasma.

The scientific community now has access to large volumes of complex remote-sensing and in-situ observations from different vantage points, complemented by petabytes of simulation data. Answering overarching science questions like “How do solar transients drive heliospheric variability and space weather?” will only be possible if the science community has the necessary tools at hand to visualize these data and assimilate them into sophisticated models.

A key piece needed to bridge the gap between observables, derived quantities like magnetic field extrapolations and model output is a tool to routinely and intuitively visualise large heterogeneous, multidimensional, time-dependent data sets. The open-source JHelioviewer software, which is part of the ESA/NASA Helioviewer Project, is addressing this need. This contribution highlights recent extensions of JHelioviewer’s functionality, in particular those of interest for Solar Orbiter.