Another world record is born! Phase II of the Meridian Project passed national acceptance

The weather we often talk about refers to cloudy, sunny, rainy and snowy weather, while space weather refers to a series of explosive phenomena on the sun, which cause changes in the plasma, magnetic field, radiation, ionization and other space environment states in the Sun-Earth space environment. The Sun-Earth space is the main area for humans to carry out space activities and develop and utilize space. Disaster space weather can lead to major risks such as satellite failure, communication interruption, navigation deviation, and power grid paralysis, threatening national security and people's livelihood infrastructure.

Today (21st), the Meridian Project Phase II, a major national scientific and technological infrastructure for space weather research, passed the national acceptance and formed the world's largest ground-based integrated space environment monitoring network together with the Meridian Project Phase I. This is the first international ground-based comprehensive space environment monitoring facility built by China that covers the entire solar-terrestrial space sphere (solar wind-magnetosphere-ionosphere-middle and upper atmosphere), marking that China's ground-based space environment monitoring capabilities have leapt into the world's leading position.

The second phase of the Meridian Project started construction in November 2019, and a number of large-scale monitoring equipment have been built, with technical indicators reaching the international advanced level. For example, the world's largest radio telescope with a comprehensive aperture, the Torus Array Solar Radio Imaging Telescope, has achieved continuous and stable solar radio imaging and spectrum observation capabilities with a maximum field of view of 10 Rs (solar radii), as well as three-dimensional tomography of coronal radio activity;

The first large-aperture laser radar array in China has a detection altitude of 200-1000 kilometers, and its signal sensitivity is 100 times that of similar international equipment;

The world's most powerful three-station incoherent scattering radar, capable of CT scanning and three-component imaging detection of the ionosphere over thousands of kilometers;

my country's first interplanetary scintillation telescope has internationally advanced capabilities in inverting the three-dimensional structure of the solar wind.

The completion of the second phase of the Meridian Project has achieved multi-dimensional breakthroughs in coverage breadth, technical depth and detection accuracy, and will significantly enhance my country's space weather forecasting and warning capabilities.

The Meridian Project Phase II has continuously acquired space environment observation data, provided data sharing services to the outside world, and continuously produced a series of results. During the trial operation, the project demonstrated excellent performance, such as successfully capturing the super magnetic storm event in May 2024, and fully recording the entire process of the response of the Sun-Earth space environment to solar activity, demonstrating its rapid, high-precision, and global monitoring capabilities for space weather events.

At present, the first and second phases of the Meridian Project have been integrated and put into operation. At the same time, based on the Meridian Project, Chinese scientists have taken the lead in proposing and leading the implementation of the International Meridian Science Plan, with the goal of establishing the most complete land meridian monitoring chain from 120° east longitude to 60° west longitude, achieving full-latitude, all-weather, and sun-drying stereoscopic observation of the solar-terrestrial space environment, solving global challenges such as solar storms and changes in the Earth's magnetic field, and providing a scientific basis for responding to space weather disasters, peacefully using space, and promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind in the field of outer space.