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Neutron detectors in one of Earth’s coldest corners have doubled as solar storm predictors.

Solar bursts – like those we are experiencing because of an upcoming solar maximum – can take out satellites or power lines on Earth, and for astronauts outside Earth’s protective magnetic field, they can be deadly.

Su Yeon Oh of South Korea’s Chungnam National University and colleagues wondered if they could use the smaller wave of charged particles that precedes a solar burst to predict the main burst. So they turned to – built to detect cosmic rays – at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.

When charged particles, such as protons, collide with gas atoms in Earth’s upper atmosphere, they shake loose neutrons that fall to Earth. The researchers found that detector data from the run-up to 12 solar storms between 1989 and 2005 predicted the storms’ arrival.

The detectors could give about 3 hours warning for relatively low-energy storms of between 40 and 80 megaelectronvolts.

That’s too low to cause harm on Earth, says Joseph Kunches of the in Boulder, Colorado. It could endanger astronauts in deep space though, who could shelter if they knew bursts were coming.

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