juliensimon/solar-radio-bursts
Solar Radio Burst Events Credit: NASA Part of a dataset collection on Hugging Face. Dataset description Catalog of solar radio burst events (spectral sweeps, fixed-frequency bursts, noise storms) from NOAA SWPC. Updated daily with incremental merge. Solar radio bursts are produced by energetic electrons accelerated during solar flares and coronal mass ejections. They are important indicators of space weather activity: Spectral sweeps (RSP) —… See the full description on the dataset page: https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/solar-radio-bursts.
Solar Radio Burst Events
<div align="center"> <img src="banner.jpg" alt="Aurora borealis blankets the Earth, seen from the ISS" width="400"> <p><em>Credit: NASA</em></p> </div>
Part of a [dataset collection](https://huggingface.co/collections/juliensimon/space-weather-datasets-69c24cae98f1666f2101ca70) on Hugging Face.
Dataset description
Catalog of solar radio burst events (spectral sweeps, fixed-frequency bursts, noise storms) from NOAA SWPC. Updated daily with incremental merge.
Solar radio bursts are produced by energetic electrons accelerated during solar flares and coronal mass ejections. They are important indicators of space weather activity:
- Spectral sweeps (RSP) — frequency-drifting bursts including Type II (CME shocks), III (electron beams), IV (post-flare continuum), V (short continuum)
- Fixed-frequency bursts (RBR) — discrete bursts at a single frequency
- Noise storms (RNS) — sustained broadband emission from active regions
The physics behind these emissions is coherent plasma radiation. When energetic electrons stream through the solar corona, they excite Langmuir waves at the local plasma frequency, which then convert into electromagnetic radiation at the fundamental and second harmonic. Because the plasma frequency depends on electron density — which decreases with altitude in the corona — Type III bursts exhibit a characteristic fast frequency drift as the electron beam propagates outward along open magnetic field lines.
Solar radio bursts are among the earliest detectable signatures of eruptive solar activity, often preceding the arrival of energetic particles and geomagnetic disturbances at Earth by minutes to days. Monitoring them is therefore critical for operational space weather forecasting.
This dataset is suitable for tabular classification tasks.
Schema
Quick stats
- 3,540 radio burst events (2026-03-01 to 2026-09-24)
- 3 event type classifications
- Top types: spectralsweep (1,822), fixedfreqburst (1,652), noisestorm (66)
Usage
from datasets import load_dataset
ds = load_dataset("juliensimon/solar-radio-bursts", split="train")
df = ds.to_pandas()from datasets import load_dataset
ds = load_dataset("juliensimon/solar-radio-bursts", split="train")
df = ds.to_pandas()
# Spectral sweep events (includes Type II, III, IV, V)
sweeps = df[df["type"] == "spectral_sweep"]
print(f"{len(sweeps):,} spectral sweep events")
# Type III bursts specifically
type_iii = sweeps[sweeps["burst_class"].str.contains("III", na=False)]
# Event type distribution over time
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
df["month"] = df["start_date"].dt.to_period("M")
monthly = df.groupby(["month", "type"]).size().unstack(fill_value=0)
monthly.plot.bar(stacked=True, figsize=(12, 4))
plt.title("Solar Radio Burst Events by Type")
plt.ylabel("Count")
plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()Data source
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/
Update schedule
Daily at 19:00 UTC
Related datasets
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About the author
Created by Julien Simon — AI Operating Partner at Fortino Capital. Part of the Space Datasets collection.
Citation
@dataset{solar_radio_bursts,
title = {Solar Radio Burst Events},
author = {Simon, Julien},
year = {2026},
url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/solar-radio-bursts},
note = {Derived from NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/},
publisher = {Hugging Face}
}