juliensimon/solar-wind

Real-Time Solar Wind

Real-time solar wind measurements from NOAA SWPC, combining plasma and magnetic field data from the DSCOVR and ACE spacecraft at the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point. Currently 10,390 minute-resolution readings spanning 2026-03-17 to 2026-03-24.

Dataset description

The solar wind is a continuous stream of charged particles flowing from the Sun. Its speed, density, and magnetic field orientation (especially Bz) are the primary drivers of geomagnetic storms. When Bz turns strongly southward (negative), it couples with Earth's magnetosphere and can trigger storms that affect satellites, power grids, and GPS.

This dataset is the missing link in the Sun-to-Earth causal chain: solar flare → CME → solar wind → Dst/Kp storm → orbital drag.

Schema

Column	Type	Description
time_tag	datetime	Measurement time (UTC, ~1-minute cadence)
density	float	Proton density (particles/cm³)
speed	float	Bulk solar wind speed (km/s)
temperature	float	Proton temperature (K)
bt	float	Total magnetic field magnitude (nT)
bx_gsm	float	Magnetic field Bx in GSM coordinates (nT)
by_gsm	float	Magnetic field By in GSM coordinates (nT)
bz_gsm	float	Magnetic field Bz in GSM coordinates (nT) — key storm driver

Quick stats

• 10,390 readings (2026-03-17 to 2026-03-24)
• Average speed: 498 km/s, max: 766 km/s
• Minimum Bz: -27.9 nT (4,324 southward readings)

Usage

from datasets import load_dataset

ds = load_dataset("juliensimon/solar-wind", split="train")
df = ds.to_pandas()

# Solar wind speed time series
df.plot(x="time_tag", y="speed", title="Solar Wind Speed")

# Bz southward events (storm drivers)
southward = df[df["bz_gsm"] < -5]
print(f"{len(southward)} readings with Bz < -5 nT")

# Correlate with Dst index
# Join with juliensimon/dst-index on nearest hourly timestamp

Update frequency

Updated daily at 15:00 UTC via GitHub Actions. Each run fetches the latest 7-day rolling window from SWPC and appends new readings to the growing dataset.

Data source

NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center. Data from DSCOVR (primary) and ACE (backup) spacecraft at the Sun-Earth L1 point, 1.5 million km sunward of Earth (60 minutes ahead of arriving solar wind).

Related datasets

• dst-index — Hourly Dst geomagnetic storm index (driven by solar wind)
• donki-space-weather-events — CMEs, storms, shocks
• solar-flare-events — Individual flare detections
• space-weather-indices — Daily Kp, Ap, F10.7

Pipeline

Source code: juliensimon/space-datasets

Citation

@dataset{solar_wind,
  author = {Simon, Julien},
  title = {Real-Time Solar Wind (DSCOVR/ACE)},
  year = {2026},
  publisher = {Hugging Face},
  url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/solar-wind},
  note = {Based on NOAA SWPC real-time solar wind data from DSCOVR and ACE}
}