Storied Careers: Auroras, deadly radiation, and Earth’s long-term future

With a heliophysics career spanning across nearly five decades, Thomas Earle Moore has always been fascinated by the Sun’s relationship with the Earth and how that relationship affects life on our planet. The impacts of space weather can be super noticeable when it results in brilliant auroras or large radiation storms that send astronauts scrambling for cover. But Thom also advocates for studies of longer-timescale phenomena, many of which are poorly understood. For example, Earth’s magnetic field periodically reverses, but no one knows exactly how or why, or when the next reversal will be, or what consequences might ensue when it does. Now that some of these studies are finally getting funded, Thom hopes the next generation of heliophysicists will take up the mantle (maybe literally?) and explore Earth’s long-term future.This episode was produced by Katrina Jackson and mixed by Collin Warren. Illustration by Jace Steiner.